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THE HOMESTEAD 


BY 

ZEPHINE HUMPHREY 

AUTHOR OF “grail FIRE,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

68i FIFTH AVENUE 



Copyright, 1919, 

BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


All Rights Reserved 


JUL -3 1919 


Printed In the United State* of America 


@CU5290.82 


TO 

W. W. F. 

HOMELAND AND HAPPY ISLES 


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THE HOMESTEAD 



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THE HOMESTEAD 


I 

I T stood well away from the village and back a 
little among the hills, in Marshall Hollow, to 
which it had given its family name. It was a sturdy 
old house, four-square, with a great central chimney 
and with a deep roof, over which bowed and swayed 
the branches of two stately elms. Like the trees, it 
gave the impression of having taken root with the 
years, until it had become an integral part of its 
New England setting. It seemed as inevitable ,a 
product as the boulders in the pasture beyond the 
orchard fence. 

But, unlike trees and rocks, it was distinctly human. 
In a sense, it seemed to possess even more of essential 
humanity than any one of its inhabitants; for indi- 
vidual men and women are but themselves, whereas 
the Marshall homestead was a whole race. 

All old houses have this mysterious knack of gath- 
ering up and incorporating the spirit of the lives that 
have been lived within them. There is no veriest 
wreck of a shanty that is not obscurely eloquent of 
love or sorrow. But the Marshall homestead had one 
advantage over the most of its kind: it had always 


2 


THE HOMESTEAD 


been occupied by one family. That is why it gave 
such an impression of unity, stood so solidly for some- 
thing, was so emphatically itself. With all its com- 
prehensiveness, it was as decided an individual as the 
first John Marshall, who built it. 

For the Marshalls, again, had one advantage (if 
it was surely that) over most of the families that 
made up the little country community: they were all 
governed by one tradition, father to son had handed 
down one consistent standard of character and action. 
Lovers of home and of the soil, citizens in the most 
peculiar and loyal sense of the word, they had, 
throughout their six generations, stood for nothing so 
much as durability. 

Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suppose that their 
house had helped them — once it had taken the hint 
from the first John Marshall. He was a man of 
strength and decision, a man to stamp himself on 
everything he touched. He was thirty when he dug 
the foundation for the house, and ninety-three when 
he died; and every night of those sixty-three years 
he slept in his own bed. The result was that he made 
short work of uncongenial tendencies, such as all 
crude new environments are apt to experiment with, 
and trained his house as inevitably as he trained his 
wife and children. By the time he died, the family 
tradition was as well established as if it had started 
with the flood. 

Not that all this was a conscious proceeding. New 
Englanders like the Marshalls are not given to intro- 
spective analysis, and are seldom articulate in their 


THE HOMESTEAD 


3 


ideal purposes. But their conviction was all the more 
profound because it was so unaware of itself, be- 
cause they none of them ever dreamed of the possi- 
bility of departing from it. Permanence and con- 
sistency were with them necessary conditions of life. 

To an imaginative passerby there was at times 
something rather oppressive about the look of their 
house. After all, mortality has evanescence in its 
blood, and mortal expressions and symbols ought not 
to look as if they could never change. But oppres- 
sion was the last thing which the community seemed 
to receive at the hands of the Marshall homestead. 
Beneficence, rather, proceeded from it — a kind, wise 
helpfulness which concerned itself gladly with all the 
affairs of local government. The first John Marshall 
was President of the first Board of Trustees of 
the Church, first Superintendent of Schools, first 
Selectman. In all the generations succeeding there 
had never failed to be Marshalls filling public offices. 
Their policy was always the same; people knew ex- 
actly what they were getting when they voted for a 
Marshall. Conservative, patient, inflexible, absolute- 
ly just and entirely sure — so were they, one and all. 
They succeeded pretty well in constraining the village 
to one line of progress; so that there was a sense in 
which the old house, looking serenely down from its 
hillside, dreaming under its gracious elms, ruled the 
whole township. 

The chief danger to the family tradition had lain 
among the Marshall mates. Young love cannot al- 
ways be trusted to know its own good, or to act for 


4 


THE HOMESTEAD 


it, if it does know it; and two or three difficult situ- 
ations had resulted from boyish or girlish reckless- 
ness. Young Thomas Marshall had insisted on mar- 
rying a frivolous, light-hearted chit of a girl from 
one of the least considerable families of a negligible 
hamlet over the mountain. She was utterly inca- 
pable of ruling a big establishment, or of appreciat- 
ing high and serious tradition; and, as Thomas was 
the eldest of his generation, the outlook was for a 
time rather dark. But the girl never throve in the 
grave and purposeful household; and, after a year 
of gradually waning smiles, she and her baby were 
carried dead out of the front door. Then Thomas — 
unreasonably affected — went away for a change of 
scene, and never came back; typhoid fever took him 
in some distant town. 

Something was wrong with that generation. Pru- 
dence Marshall, the next in line, had no sooner come 
of age than she married a sea captain. Of all things, 
a sea captain in the Marshall homestead! Very like- 
ly he, too, was surprised. He certainly had no idea 
of deserting his ship when, on a visit to relatives, be- 
tween cruises, he met Prudence and fell in love with 
her. But, once he was married, he realized that he 
had let himself in for a thoroughgoing change. 

“Funny how some things get hold of you,” he said, 
years later, to an old comrade whom he ran across on 
one of his rare trips away from home. “I can't ex- 
plain how it happened, and very likely it will sound 
ridiculous to you; but, once that old house had 
clapped its eye on me, I could no more have gotten 


THE HOMESTEAD 


5 

away from it than a harpooned sword fish can get 
away from you.” 

By this speech it will be perceived that Bamaby 
Rogers had a certain whimsical imagination which 
was indeed a novelty in the Marshall family. The 
bare facts of his coercion were not at all mysterious. 
Prudence’s mother was dead, and her father was a 
broken man, physically disabled by a kick from a 
vicious horse. His daughter was needed at home, and 
so was her husband. The two of them took one 
delirious cruise, during which Prudence was piti- 
fully sick and bewildered, staggering helplessly about 
the decks and cabins when she was not lying pros- 
trate in her bunk; and, after that, Barnaby manfully 
and humorously gave up his visions of a nautical 
wife. 

‘‘You stay at home next time, darling,” he said. 

“Yes, please, Barnaby,” Prudence assented, with 
tears in her eyes. 

But there was only one more “next time” for Bar- 
naby. He loved Prudence, and he loved the little 
son who waited for him at the end of his far Eastern 
trip. Moreover, he felt the claim of the new duties 
that lay thick around him in the new life to which he 
had allied himself. Some able-bodied man was need- 
ed at the helm of the Marshall farm; who was a 
more fitting candidate than Prudence’s husband? So 
he gave up his ship, and settled down; and during 
the rest of his life the house had its way with him. 

And yet not entirely. At least, if the outer con- 
formity was complete, there was an inner dissen- 


6 


THE HOMESTEAD 


sion, the signs and symbols of which were every- 
where: great murmuring shells on the mantelpiece; 
oriental curios scattered among the worsted mats and 
daguerreotypes on the parlor table; a sail rigged up 
in the barnyard to keep the rain from the chicken 
coops; and, beside the front steps, an anchor which 
Prudence covered with nasturtiums in the summer, 
but which, for nine months of the year, lay as stark 
and conspicuous as Noah’s ark on Mount Ararat. 

These visible things were disturbing ; but they were 
nothing compared with the hidden strain which Bar- 
naby had, once for all, introduced into the Marshall 
blood. To be sure, his children were Prudence’s, 
too; and she was all Marshall, a very sedate, home- 
keeping woman. She soberly trained her son and 
daughter in the full Marshall tradition, which she un- 
consciously represented. Nor did her husband gain- 
say her. He knew what she was doing, for, as has 
been hinted, he had a trick of analysis; and he good- 
naturedly let her alone. 

'"What’s the use?” he cogitated sometimes. "Any- 
way, settled natures are apt to be happier than rest- 
less ones. I’d rather have the youngsters stay at 
home than go knocking about the world.” 

That did all very well. Barnaby was getting along 
into middle age when he formulated these sage con- 
clusions. But the crucial question was going to be: 
what would the youngsters themselves rather have? 
And it is not for nothing that a sea-change creeps 
into mountain blood. 

The next generation showed little effect of its al- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


7 


loy. There were four of them — one son and three 
daughters — sturdy little Rogerses by name, but equal- 
ly sturdy little Marshalls by disposition. The son 
was pure Marshall. He bore the family name in the 
van, since he could not, like his predecessors, bring 
up the rear with it. His grandfather saw to this bap- 
tismal restitution — a double sort of regeneration — 
before Barnaby had a chance to get home and express 
any opinion. 

The result was, in time, a steady, grave youth, law- 
abiding and unadventurous beyond any ancestral prec- 
edent. Conservative was a polite epithet for Mar- 
shall Rogers; his neighbors called him pig-headed. 
In truth, it seemed that the family tradition, trying 
to right itself after its recent vicissitudes, had gone 
too far. Marshall was almost a monstrosity of stead- 
fastness. Considering, moreover, that he labored un- 
der a hopeless handicap in the matter of his name, 
and that his marriage would mean the handing on of 
the alien title to sons and grandsons, he could not be 
regarded as a very satisfactory experiment. 

It was on the roof of the homestead that he met 
his death. He was not agile, on his feet, and he should 
never have climbed up to mend the chimney. His 
mother remonstrated with him, but he paid no more 
attention to her than he was accustomed to pay to 
any one who ever took the trouble to advise him. He 
simply turned away in silence, and placed his lad- 
der. He made no outcry when he fell, nor did he ut- 
ter a single complaint during the few days of his 
agonized fight for life. His eyes were dogged to the 


THE HOMESTEAD 


very end. But, alas, poor Marshall! he had met one 
Force whose advice was a command. His father, 
Barnaby, wiping rare tears from his manly eyes on 
the evening after the funeral, did not see how the 
present and future void was going to be filled. 

But young men are plentiful in this fertile world; 
and, as one took his eternal departure, another ap- 
proached through the spring twilight. Hester Rog- 
ers sat on the front steps. She had lately learned to 
sit there, instead of roaming the evening meadows as 
had once been her wont. She did not tell herself 
that her cousin, young Henry Marshall, from the far 
West, had anything to do with her change of habit; 
but probably that was because she did not wisely or 
thoroughly investigate her girlish heart. 

He was only her third cousin. His father had been 
bom in Dakota, and none of his generation had ever 
set foot in Vermont. But his father’s grandfather 
was the youngest son of an unusually large family 
in the Marshall homestead; and he had gone West 
simply because he had felt himself, in a way, crowded 
out. He had wanted to live a man’s life, and had not 
found room for it at home. He had cherished the 
memories of his birthplace, handing them down to 
his children, who, in turn, had instructed his grand- 
children; so that the Marshall tradition had not died 
out by transplanting, but had taken new root and had 
put forth new bloom of the peculiar color and fra- 
grance of the legendary. No Dakota Marshall but 
understood the exact location and aspect of the Ver- 
mont homestead. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


9 

Finally Henry Marshall declared his intention of 
returning to New England. 

“Oh ! I guess not to stay/* he added, when he caught 
the glance which his brothers and sisters turned upon 
him. “I just want to see how the old place looks.** 

“I tell you, Hester,** he said, however, as he sat 
by his young cousin*s side on the steps during those 
spring twilights of which mention has been made, “I 
tell you, it*s a great thing to come home, home where 
you belong.** 

“Don*t I belong here? May I stay? Are you 
going to be willing to let me stay?** he ventured one 
evening; and, at her reply, the two of them got up 
and disappeared under the shadow of the trees be- 
yond the house. 

This was a wonderful consummation. For Hester 
was the second child of Prudence and Barnaby, and 
therefore, since Marshairs death, the heir to the home- 
stead. Nothing could be more desirable than that 
she should marry a Marshall and thus re-establish the 
family name on its rightful ground. 

He was a splendid young Marshall, too. Never a 
finer had tossed hay in the meadows or pruned 
the apple trees. His father-in-law harded over much 
of the farm*s direction to him at once; and ended 
by submitting himself entirely to the younger and 
more vigorous ideas. Henry had western methods 
which proved highly successful on New England soil. 
Also he had spontaneous enthusiasm, whereas Bar- 
naby had never had anything but a faithful sense of 
duty towards his wife*s patrimonial acres. The re- 


lO 


THE HOMESTEAD 


suit was a stirring and quickening throughout the 
whole place, outside and in. Barns were pulled down 
and re-built, instead of being tinkered and patched. 
Neighboring land was bought over; old trees were 
cut down and new ones set out; new crops were 
planted in meadows which had gone half asleep, re- 
peating the old monotonous sequence of timothy and 
potatoes and corn. Not in decades had the farm 
known such an awakening. Only the house itself 
was not touched, save to receive a fresh coat of paint. 
Henry would not listen even to his wife’s suggestion 
that he should add a new side piazza. 

‘'No, no, Hester! We mustn’t change the house; 
it’s got too much character.” 

Hester also submitted completely to her husband’s 
decisions. That was doubly natural in her, since she 
adored him, and since every one submitted to him. 
Only once in her life did she disconcert him, and that 
was in the early years of their marriage. Her father, 
Barnaby, had announced his intention of going away 
for a little trip. 

“Guess I’d like to see how a ship feels again,” he 
said jocularly one evening, after he had, for several 
days, puzzled his wife and disturbed his daughter by 
wandering restlessly about the garden, paying more 
attention to the old anchor than to the tasks with 
which he might presumably have allayed his restless- 
ness. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t go, now 
that Henry’s got the farm so well in hand. Come 
along, Prudence; put on your bonnet and shawl, and 
let’s start for Marseilles.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


11 


Of course Prudence gasped and turned pale. Her 
feet — more solid than ever with the weight of her 
fifty-odd years — felt again the swaying of the deck, 
and involuntarily she put out her hand and clutched 
the reassuring edge of the kitchen table. But Hes- 
ter sprang to her feet and caught her father’s arm. 

‘"Oh, father, do it!” she cried. “I have always 
wished you would, and would take me with you. I’ll 
go with you now, if you’ll let me. I’ll have to take 
Barbara too, of course; but she’s such a good baby, 
she won’t be in the way. Henry! Mother! You 
won’t mind, will you? We’ll be back in a few weeks.” 

Whether they minded or not, they consented, look- 
ing at Hester’s transfigured face and then at each 
other with startled eyes. 

“Best way to cure her,” said Henry later, when 
his mother-in-law waylaid him in the barnyard and 
took anxious counsel with him. “It cured you, didn’t 
it?” 

The pertinent question was unanswerable except 
by an analysis of which Prudence was not capable. 
But she obscurely felt the difference between her own 
old passive departure, swept off her feet by love, and 
this volitional act of her daughter’s, setting herself 
against love for the sake of some other prompting of 
her nature. 

Henry was right, however: the trip did cure Hes- 
ter. Not in the way in which her mother had been 
cured. She gloried in the ship’s motion, the life of 
the sea; she and her baby were everywhere about the 
swinging decks, never in any one’s way, but always 


12 THE HOMESTEAD 

where the free ecstasy of existence might be felt to 
the full. 

“Gad! I’d know she was a sailor’s lass,” said one 
of her father’s old comrades, watching her hold little 
shouting Barbara up to receive a flying bath of spray. 
“Born and bred on a farm? Say, Barnaby, that’s a 
fairy tale, ain’t it?” 

Barnaby was in the seventh heaven. He and Hes- 
ter had always been peculiarly close friends, and now 
she seemed to give him the very wine of comradeship. 
But his content did not last long. Before they had 
been out ten days (their vessel was a slow sailing 
schooner), a cloud obscured his daughter’s radiance; 
and, instead of springing about the decks, she took 
to leaning and gazing back at the western horizon. 

“It’s Henry, father,” she explained, when he came 
and stood beside her. “I’m homesick; I want him. 
Oh! you and the .sea have claimed me too late. I’m 
sorry, and I’m glad.” 

He took her home by a fast steamer ; and that was 
the last of his nautical experiments with the women 
of his family. 

Barnaby died at an earlier age than was quite cus- 
tomary with the masters of the Marshall homestead. 
Perhaps that was because, since Hester’s marriage, 
he had not been really master, and the place had not 
needed him. Had it ever needed him? Only as a 
mere man, the possessor of muscles and sinews, useful 
for work. As an individual, he had been more of a 
disturbance than a blessing. He was not sorry to go. 
He lay, smiling, on his bed, facing the eastern light. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


13 

“Hester,” he whispered, “do you think I might see 
Barbara once more? I don’t look very bad, do I?^’ 

Barbara was six years old, already deep in the eyes 
and firm in the mouth — a strong, sweet little girl. 
She loved her grandfather dearly, yet she did not cry 
as she stood beside him. She even returned his smile. 
He put out his hand and drew her closer, fumbling 
under his pillow with his other hand. 

“That’s it. Thank you, lass. It’s for you. Your 
grand-daddy’s first compass. I had it when I was a 
boy. It’s small, but it’s true. It’ll guide you safe. 
It’s ” 

But his breath failed him; he broke off and lay, 
smiling at her. 

She never forgot that moment. When she was a 
woman it stood up out of the mists of her childhood 
like a headland touched by the sun. She was always 
glad to remember that she had then and there pulled 
a blue ribbon out of her pocket and had tied the com- 
pass about her neck, slipping it down inside the low 
collar of her childish frock. 

“That’s right. Safe sailing to you, lass.” 

Then her mother had come in and led her away. 

After her husband’s death, Prudence moved into a 
little cottage belonging to the Marshall farm. Henry 
and Hester remonstrated with her, but she was firm. 
Neither would she listen to the requests of her other 
married children that she come and live with them. 
Perhaps she was happier, living alone. She had her 
memories. 

Then the old homestead gave itself over to the en- 


14 


THE HOMESTEAD 


joyment of a period that equaled, almost transcended, 
any that it had known. The Marsliall stock was in 
fruitage again — lusty, vigorous. To be sure, there 
were only three babies to lie in the old cradle and 
tumble about the old, uneven floors; and the second 
son died in infancy. But Barbara and Reuben were 
sturdy; and Henry, their father, was a generation in 
himself. Not only did his skill with the farm amount 
to genius, but he was also capable in civic affairs. 
He had not been in the homestead a year before he 
was appointed to offlce ; and by the time he was forty, 
no board or committee that ever took shape thought 
itself complete without him. 

Those were great days for the old house. Its win- 
dows shone with benevolence, the warm heart of its 
chimney glowed, its deep roof and strong walls shel- 
tered its inmates very tenderly. Now and then in 
the twilight Barbara thought (she had inherited her 
grandfather’s trick of thinking things) that she heard 
it singing a low song of content, the song of one who 
has travailed and feared, who has held to its standard 
in the face of much danger and difficulty, who has 
persisted, and who, at the last, has conquered hap- 
pily. Then she was apt to lay her cheek against the 
square pillar beside which she sat on the front steps, 
and to draw a long, deep sigh. 


II 


I T is not on the front steps, however, that our story 
begins to concern itself seriously with Barbara. 
Rather, it is on the top of a hill, facing the sunset. 

She had been out all day, and her face had the 
wide, self-forgetful look which conies from long, in- 
timate intercourse with the wind and sky. Her 
hair was blown about her forehead, and her cheeks 
were flushed. She was too young — barely twenty — 
and too used to life in the open to feel tired now ; but 
when she gained the crest of the hill she stood erect 
for a moment and then allowed herself to sink down 
at the foot of a great gray rock where, with her 
hands clasped about her knees, she gave herself over 
to meditation. 

She was a girl worth pausing to look at — if any 
observer had been in that lonely place. Rather tall, 
largely built, with a certain sweep in the curves of 
her strong young body which suggested the contours 
of her native hills. Her hair was dark and wayward, 
submitting perforce to the thick braids in which she 
bound it about her head, but escaping over her fore- 
head and ears. Her eyes, however, were blue. They 
surprised one who had never seen them before, and 
sometimes even the people who had seen her many 
times, they lay so deep and quiet in her vivid face. 

15 


i6 


THE HOMESTEAD 


If it had not been for them, her expression would 
have been one of impetuous eagerness. As it was, 
she seemed to be ever arresting herself and com- 
menting admonishingly on her own impulses. Her 
hands and mouth were firm and sweet, very wom- 
anly tender; and yet what a spring there was to the 
arch of the one, and what a swift grasp to the others! 
There was some contradiction in Barbara Marshall, 
something that was going to give her trouble as she 
grew older. 

Perhaps it was giving her trouble already; for, 
after all, twenty is womanhood. She certainly looked 
rather grave as she sat on her sunset hill. But, no; 
she was only subdued by her long day. She gave a 
sigh, nestled back against her rock, and began to sing 
softly to herself. The wide world lay at her feet, 
with the sun dropping slowly down over it. The wide 
sky was overhead, preparing its stars. Ah! What a 
good wide universe ! She stopped singing as abruptly 
as she had begun; and, stretching her arms up over 
her head, lay back bodily upon the warm rock. There 
she was lying, gazing up into the sky, when William 
Sloan came up the hill and found her. 

He came more slowly than she (she had arrived 
with a leap and a bound), for he was older and less 
impetuous. A sober farmer of thirty- two is not likely 
to spring up hillsides at supper-time. He stopped 
short when he saw her, pulled his hat from his head, 
wiped his forehead, and stood looking at her uncon- 
scious face with a quizzical smile. Then when she saw 
him (for her senses were too delicately trained by her 


THE HOMESTEAD 


17 


experience in woods and fields to let her remain long 
unconscious of his presence), and sat up to greet 
him, he came and dropped on the grass by her side. 

Neither of them spoke for a moment. They looked 
at each other, he with the same quizzical smile which 
his first sight of her had called forth, she with a 
curious sort of defiance, in which laughter lurked. 
From their long, steady regard, it appeared that they 
were tried friends, understanding each other. 

‘William!” she said at last. “Aren’t you ashamed? 
I’m grown up now.” 

“Quite sure, Barbara?” 

The man turned and pulled some packages from 
the wide pockets of his loose coat; then he stretched 
himself on the grass, with his hands behind his head. 
Barbara looked down steadily into his smiling eyes. 

“You’re tired,” she murmured regretfully. “Well, 
it’s your own fault; you needn’t have come. Are 
those sandwiches, William?” 

Her voice had three separate moods in this little 
speech. 

“Yes, and sponge cake.” William put out one hand 
and guarded the packages. “Also some cream cheese. 
But you’re not to have a bite until you have given 
account of yourself. You grown up? You’re a 
child!” 

“Oh, William!” Barbara clasped her hands about 
her knees and threw back her head, looking off at 
the western horizon toward which the sun was has- 
tening. “Don’t scold. It isn’t like you. You under- 
stand,” 


i8 


THE HOMESTEAD 


“Well, perhaps I did understand, years ago, when 
you had every right to be a child. But now I had 
really supposed it was true that you were growing 
up.^’ 

“Well She thought of defending herself. 

Then her mood veered again. “William, mayn’t I 
have just one sandwich ?” she ventured meekly. 

William laughed, and tossed all the packages into 
her lap. Swiftly and approvingly she opened them, 
spread their contents on the rock, and proceeded to 
serve the informal meal. 

“It’s like old times, isn’t it, William? (My! your 
mother does make good cheese.) Aren’t you rather 
glad I did it? Come, now, aren’t you, really?” 

William lifted his eyebrows above his smiling 
mouth and, without looking up, leaned over to help 
himself to cheese. 

“I’ve been in the cornfield all day,” he said; “and 
it’s a long walk up here.” 

Barbara hesitated. Her face fell a little, as if, for 
all her long acquaintance with him, she was not sure 
that, this time, he might not be in earnest. 

“William!” she coaxed. “I think I could still find 
you a bird’s nest, or a fairy ring, or something. I’ll 
go right away and hunt.” 

“No,” declined William politely. “Thank you ; but 
you see, I really am grown up. Moreover, I don’t 
want to move.” 

He stretched himself more comfortably on the 
short, warm grass. 

Barbara was silent a moment. William knew how 


THE HOMESTEAD 


19 

to tease her so well that now he had succeeded in call- 
ing a tentative look of dismay into her face. 

‘Terhaps,” she suggested, “perhaps you never 
cared very much about fairy rings, after all. Wil- 
liam, surely you haven’t forgotten ” 

Her voice rang appealingly. 

He looked up at her and smiled, dismissing the 
bantering mood with which he had gone far enough. 
His eyes took their turn at letting friendship shine 
fully and simply from them. 

“No, of course not!” he reassured her; and it was 
evident that his memory held some precious scenes. 

Then he went on eating his sponge cake, and si- 
lence fell between them. 

“William.” 

It had been a long silence. The sun had sunk be- 
low the horizon, and the level clouds had received his 
parting benediction, and passed it on to a hushed and 
waiting world. In the east the face of the full moon 
had begun to gather light. Barbara had sat in med- 
itation, not precisely in reverie. She was too active 
a nature to dream, though she might see visions. 

“William, did they send you after me to-day; or is 
mother worrying now?” 

The subtle — perhaps unconscious — compliment of 
that “or” did not escape William, and he glanced ac- 
knowledgment of it. But he also detected an equivo- 
cal implication to repudiate. 

“Do you think I’d let you stay lingering here,” he 
said somewhat sternly, “if your mother were worry- 
ing about you? No, they sent word to me an hour 


20 


THE HOMESTEAD 


or two ago; and then they went down to the village 
to the church sociable.” 

‘‘William, Fm sorry; really I am,'’ Barbara con- 
fessed, her blue eyes rueful and deprecating under- 
neath her swift eyebrows. “Perhaps you wanted to 
go to the sociable.” 

“I? Now, Barbara, you know better. I was only 
planning to have a good hot supper at home, and then 
to read until bedtime.” 

“William! You’re teasing me.” 

“Yes, child, of course I am. Fm all right. I like 
it up here. Fm really rather obliged to you for the 
excuse. But you can’t keep it up all your life, you 
know; for Fm getting old, and Fll soon be too stiff 
to climb after you.” 

“I haven’t the least idea why I did it to-day.” She 
brought her eyes back from the sunset, and bent them 
earnestly on her companion, taking counsel with him 
and herself. “I didn’t know I was going to do it. I 
started out after strawberries, and then I couldn’t 
stop climbing, and then — Fve been to the yery top of 
West Mountain,” she confessed, laughing. 

“Feel any better?” 

William received the news of her far departure 
with a philosophical lift of the eyebrows. 

“Lots!” She gave him a glance of gratitude for 
his intelligence. “Fm not quite ready yet to go home, 
but pretty nearly.” 

“Well, Barbara, I don’t often advise you, jdo I?” 
He paused to win her accord, and she gave it, “No, 
William,” wholeheartedly. “But Fm going to ask 


THE HOMESTEAD 


21 


you now why you don’t try working off your spirits 
in the kitchen. You’re a full-grown woman ; you have 
duties; you ” 

‘'William!” She cut him short. There was a note 
of entreaty in her voice, and actual tears stood in her 
eyes. "Don’t preach to me! I can’t stand it!” 

Well as he knew her, he was taken aback by her 
stress. He looked at her silently. Then he changed 
his admonition into a laugh. 

"Hold on, Barbara! There’s nothing tragic about 
it. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” 

"Oh, William! you don’t know” — Barbara accept- 
ed his readjustment of the situation, and returned his 
laugh — "you have no idea what it means to me that 
you understand. Nobody else does. I don’t half 
understand, myself; but you do, and that is a bul- 
wark.” 

William continued to study her face for a moment, 
with a curious little wistful gleam in the corner of 
his eye. Then he sighed and said : 

"Very well, I take back my sermon. But if you 
should ever remember it and care to know the text, 
you can find it somewhere in the thirteenth chapter 
of First Coripthians.” 

Barbara rose. Her motion was not apparently due 
to anything William had said ; she had seemed to pay 
scant attention to him since her last remonstrance. 
She had a far-away, listening look, as of one who 
hears some tide of the spirit turn. 

"Let’s go home,” she said, quite irrelevantly — 


22 


THE HOMESTEAD 


though, of course, the suggestion might have been a 
very pertinent acquiescence. 

William rose too. He did not flatter himself that 
the girl’s expression and action had anything to do 
with his recent exhortation. On how many hillsides 
had he not seen the same expression come over her 
face, and heard the same words voice it! For the last 
five minutes he had, indeed, been watching for the 
change, anticipating the turn of the tide which his 
experience had taught him was almost due. He 
glanced at his comrade and smiled to see how, as he 
phrased it to himself, her eyes had now got the bet- 
ter of her mouth. In her contradictory face one 
feature had folded its springing lines into an almost 
wistful submission ; and the blue lakes over them were 
swept clear — wide, watchful, dominant. 

‘‘All right, Barbara!” 

He made haste to gather up the remains of the 
supper and thrust them into his pockets; for he knew 
that Barbara’s eyes had no more mercy, brooked no 
more delay, than her mouth. Her returnings were 
always as imperious as her departures. 

“Wait just a minute.” 

But, no, she was gone, vanishing under the arch 
of the wood path that led down the mountain side. 
He started to follow her at a run; then thought 
better of his impulse, and settled down to a sober 
though agile gait that kept her just within ear-shot. 
After all, he was twelve years older than she, and of 
a much graver nature. He was not going to career 
down the hillside like a distracted boulder in her wake. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


23 

Anyway! He smiled as he felt the almost tangible 
end of the cord by which he held her, the need of him 
which would presently bring her to a full stop, wait- 
ing for him. She had never yet, after a runaway 
day, been able to face her home without his rein- 
forcement. 

Sure enough : at the point where the path burst out 
of the woods and stopped short on the edge of a high 
open field, he came up with Barbara, and she laid 
her hand arrestingly on his arm. 

‘‘Come along !’’ he said, as she hung back. 

“William, Fm really afraid,’' she laughed. 

“Nonsense!” He pulled her forward. 

On the outer edge of the woods they stood for a 
moment, full in the face of the evening valley. It 
was almost dark. Far down below them the fields 
lay dim and blurred in the moon-mingled shadows. 
Across the way from them the mountains rose, dusky 
and gigantic. The night was silent. An owl called 
in the woods behind, and a few insects were begin- 
ning to take up the burden of their symphony. But 
these rhythmic sounds only deepened the hush of the 
hills and valley. At wide, scattered intervals, farm- 
house lights shone through the darkness. Among 
them the windows of the Marshall homestead sent 
forth a watchful ray. Barbara’s eyes sought her home 
at once. She knew exactly where to look for it, and 
she received its unfaltering salutation with a sigh. 

She said nothing further, nor did she stop again, 
as she and William descended the hill. But when 
they stood in the heavily shadowed front yard of 


24 


THE HOMESTEAD 


the homestead, with the great dark bulk of the house 
looming before them, they paused once more, with 
mutual, tacit consent. The light that had found Bar- 
bara on the hill had issued from the kitchen win- 
dows, and the front of the house was in darkness. 
Only the surface of its window-panes glinted and 
gleamed in the moonlight which stole through the 
branches of the trees. There was something very 
disconcerting in the blank scrutiny of those baffling 
eyes. No wonder Barbara felt herself in the pres- 
ence of embodied disapproval. 


Ill 


T he light in the kitchen had been kindled by 
Barbara’s brother, Reuben, two years younger 
than she. He sat beside it, studying an agricultural 
journal. The great room around him was mysteri- 
ous with lurking shadows, with fathomless sugges- 
tions of things that could not be there, yet that had 
been there once, and — who knows? — might yet be 
again. The whole past and future of the old house 
lay outside the circle of the young man’s lamp. But, 
within it, lay only the present — precise, clearly defined, 
and emphatic. Reuben was one of the most practi- 
cal Marshalls that had ever lived. 

He looked up composedly when his sister and her 
companion entered the door. Doubtless he had heard 
the creaking of the gate. 

*‘Ah, William!” 

He rose and extended his hand to his neighbor, 
giving him a straightforward glance. But his eyes 
paused coldly on Barbara’s face, then turned away. 

‘T’m ashamed to say how much we thank you,” he 
continued. ‘T thought we’d got through needing this 
kind of help from you.” 

‘^Reuben!” 

Even a calmer nature than Barbara’s would have 
rebelled at the cool young ironical voice. 

25 


26 


THE HOMESTEAD 


‘‘Reuben! Just as if I were a helpless child! Don’t 
you suppose I knew the way home? I was coming 
when William found me.” 

“Children aren’t helpless; that isn’t the trouble,” 
stated her brother dispassionately. “It’s that they 
can’t be trusted.” 

“Oh, come now, Reuben!” William had intended 
to leave Barbara at the door; but, seeing that she still 
had need of him, he came forward into the room. 
“Don’t make something out of nothing.” 

“Nothing?” Reuben shrugged his shoulders. “I 
guess you wouldn’t have thought it was nothing if 
you’d seen the state mother was in. She had a lot of 
ironing on hand, and was counting on Barbara to 
help her. Then she was worried, too. Barbara hasn’t 
any excuse any longer for running away. I’ve never 
seen mother in such a state.” 

“But she went to the sociable, Reuben.” 

Barbara’s transient vexation was gone. She had 
been all ready for full penitence, as she had entered 
the door; and the reminder of her neglected duties 
and the news of her mother’s anxiety smote her. 

“Father made her. He said he had to go anyway — 
he’d promised to see a man there — and he wasn’t go- 
ing to leave her hanging over the gate and running 
to the turn in the road and fretting herself sick.” 

“Oh, dear me!” Barbara caught her breath. “Wil- 
liam, come on with me down to the village. I must 
find her at once.” 

But even as she spoke, wheels were heard on the 


THE HOMESTEAD 


27 

rough mountain road, and a woman’s voice called 
from the darkness, 

‘‘Reuben! Has Barbara come back?” 

“Mother!” Barbara sprang from the doorway, 
ran to the slowly approaching carriage, put up both 
hands, and clasped her mother’s arm. “I’m here, 
dear; and, oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize.” 

“Get away from the wheel, Barbara.” It was her 
father’s voice that answered her, though her moth- 
er’s hands prevented her from obeying him. “You 
don’t have to break your leg just because you’ve been 
a naughty girl. Well, there now, take your mother 
in and get her some supper. She wouldn’t eat a 
thing at the sociable.” 

“Let me put up your horse for you, Mr. Marshall.” 

William stepped forward from the shadow, where 
he had taken refuge from what seemed likely to be a 
family “scene.” With all his experience in media- 
tion he had never learned not to shrink from the 
embarrassing intimacy which the office entailed; and 
he now made one hopeful effort at complete escape. 
But Barbara stopped him. 

“Oh, William, no! Father, send Reuben!” 

There were two sorts of appeal and confidence in 
this speech, the one seeming somewhat to discount the 
other. If Barbara trusted her father, why did she 
so desperately need William’s support? 

Her father chuckled. 

“Elder brother business again, eh?” he said. “Well, 
I’ve always wondered what would have happened if 
the elder brother had been at home, instead of the 


28 


THE HOMESTEAD 


father, when the prodigal returned. Hi! Reuben! 
Come out and put up Sammy for me.” 

Reuben came with extreme reluctance. He had 
not shared William's alarm in face of the pending 
situation; and he thought it hard lines that, having 
stayed at home to greet Barbara (as a matter of fact, 
he hated sociables, but that was aside from the point), 
he should now be defrauded of his reward. He drove 
off to the bam in a rattling hurry, compounded of 
vexation and a purpose to return. 

But, after all, it was not much that happened. Hes- 
ter Marshall was clearly spent. She was not very 
strong of late years, anyway, and the day's extra 
work and anxiety had told upon her. She dropped 
into a rocking-chair, and her daughter dropped at her 
feet, taking off her shoes, replacing them with her 
slippers, caressing her with murmurs of remorse and 
tenderness. Then the girl sprang to the stove and 
began to prepare something to eat. Her atonement 
was as active and effective as her offence had been. 

Henry Marshall stood looking on for a moment, his 
face a curious study of honest concern and perplexity, 
but equally honest amusement and affection. It was 
evident that he was troubled — he frowned soberly 
once after Barbara's eyes had flashed over him — but 
evident also that he intended eventually to master 
whatever difficulty he found in his daughter's dispo- 
sition, and that, meantime, he was not going to flatter 
and stimulate said difficulty by taking it too seriously. 
He was one who had almost never been worsted by 
difficulty. Above everything else, it was evident that 


THE HOMESTEAD 


29 

he loved his daughter. His eyes softened and deep- 
ened inevitably when she turned and smiled plead- 
ingly at him. 

He was a fine figure of a man. His fifty-five years 
had molded him, hardening his limbs, squaring his 
shoulders, chiseling his features. The latter were 
rather rugged, but they were clearly cut. His whole 
build was massive; one understood where Barbara 
got her physical scope. His hair .and beard were be- 
ginning to show streaks of gray. Youth was long 
past for him, but old age was seemingly just as re- 
mote. In the full heart of life he stood, like a lusty 
tree. His daughter returned his affection. Her eyes 
reflected the look in his when, hesitating and shaking 
his head, he at last smiled at her. 

In truth, it was now apparent that she looked like 
him. William, waiting his chance to escape, and 
meantime bringing in wood for the fire, noted the 
resemblance with some surprise. An hour ago, in 
the open, he had thought that the girl’s face sug- 
gested no member of her family. Now it seemed to 
him that he had never seen two people look so alike 
as this father and daughter. There was in both faces 
the same square cut to the chin, the same broad mold- 
ing of the forehead, the same quietness in the eyes. 
Above all, there was the same expression of strength 
and earnestness. But surely Barbara had not worn 
that look a couple of hours ago. William remembered 
how she had then seemed to him like a flame, a cascade, 
like a young tree tossed by the wind, like anything in 
the world but a symbol of quietness. Well, he was 


30 


THE HOMESTEAD 


used to being puzzled by the changes in Barbara — so 
used that he really was not puzzled, only interested and 
on the alert for new developments. Which would 
dominate as she grew older : the eyes or the mouth ? 
the wanderer or the home-keeper? He wondered, a 
little wistfully. It was only her eyes that gave him the 
least hope for the desire that he hardly dared recog- 
nize in his own hidden heart. 

She let him go when he next attempted to take his 
leave. 

“Thank you, William.’’ 

She could not give him her hand, for she was beat- 
ing an omelette; but she looked straight and steadily 
into his eyes with an expression of beautiful trust. A 
soul that trusts another like that has learned almost 
the best thing in life. There was humility in her gaze 
too, but it was so genuine that it ignored its own sense 
of shame. When one is thoroughly sorry, one is not 
afraid to look one’s friend in the face. 

“Good-night, Barbara.” 

William smiled rallyingly at her. Then he took 
his hat, shook hands with the two older people, and 
went out into the night. It was significant — as the 
phrase runs, “it spoke volumes” concerning his rela- 
tion with this family — that, though Henry Marshall 
repeated his daughter’s formula of gratitude, the 
words had a comfortable ring of matter-of-factness, 
as if he were thanking the sun for rising or the brook 
for flowing. “Thank you, William — ^yes, but one is 
always thanking William. 

In truth, for the last seventeen years, the Marshalls 


THE HOMESTEAD 


31 


had lived in a well-nigh perpetual state of obligation 
to William Sloan. He himself reviewed the situation, 
as he went home through the moonlight — not calling 
it obligation, but a strangely reiterated demand that 
life itself made upon him, a precious privilege in 
which there lurked a bitterness. He had never in- 
tended to saddle himself with Barbara Marshall’s des- 
tiny when, as a boy of fifteen, he had gone off to find 
her and bring her back from her first escapade. He 
had not thought much about the occurrence. He was 
good at finding strayed animals, and his going straight 
to the sap-house, where the lost baby agonized, seemed 
to him only an unusually fortunate piece of luck. He 
carried her all the way home; the clasp of her little 
arms about his neck was irresistible. He apprehend- 
ed now, looking back, that an absolutely cosmic bond 
was established in that hour. 

The next time she ran away — pretty soon — Henry 
Marshall sent for him ; and again he went straight to 
her in the heart of the woods. She was not fright- 
ened this time. She was sitting on a big rock, calmly 
waiting for him. When she saw him, she climbed 
down and ran and slipped her little hand into his. 
‘T’ll show 00 a birdie’s nest,” she said benignantly. 

Thus it had gone on. No wonder the Marshalls 
ceased to have any special sense of obligation to Wil- 
liam, they were so frequently indebted. Finding Bar- 
bara was his chore, just as killing woodchucks was 
the prerogative of the Simmons boy, and snaring 
rabbits the profession of Tom Henderson. Country 


32 THE HOMESTEAD 

neighbors help and rely on one another with a frank 
generosity. 

But every one thought it unfortunate that the de- 
mand should come so often. No Marshall child had 
ever had such a mania for running away. Henry re- 
fused to be seriously troubled. ‘^She’ll outgrow it/* 
he said ; *'and all the sooner for giving way to it now. 
I’ll see that she’s punished every time it happens.” 
Which, being interpreted, implied that, in his philos- 
ophy, human nature was the better for getting its sin 
actively out of it, and then receiving punishment and 
learning what was expected of it. But Hester said 
nothing. She had to let Henry discipline their chil- 
dren ; for all his world had to let him do whatever he 
wanted. But often she wondered whether she did 
not understand Barbara better than he, and whether, 
in general, wayward natures could be checked by pun- 
ishment. That which is in the blood is perhaps trans- 
mutable, but is seldom docile to dictation. Hester’s 
own blood whispered secrets of insight and wisdom 
to her. 

William knew about all these things. As he grew 
older he frequently shared the counsels of the Mar- 
shalls. Henry spoke out to him, airing his finished 
views on life and people. Hester said little, but her 
silence was eloquent to one who understood. He and 
she knew Barbara — at least, they held the clue to her ; 
and their knowledge made them anxiously ignorant 
of her future development. 

Her grandfather had known her too — dear, tender- 
hearted old Barnaby, with the roving step. Between 


THE HOMESTEAD 


33 


the little girl and the old man had existed one of those 
beautiful relations that sometimes bind youth and 
age, transporting both beyond their limitations. They 
were inseparable companions as long as he lived. But 
after he died, Barbara had only his compass about 
her neck to keep her in touch with him. To William 
alone was given her full, developing confidence. 

This was very sweet to him. At first, her childish 
prattle was more amusing than anything else ; and he 
came home from his wildwood sessions with her, full 
of quaint anecdotes. But gradually he ceased to re- 
peat the things she said to him; for they lost their 
universal nature, and began to reflect a peculiarly 
marked and intimate personality. He understood that, 
frank as she was, Barbara would hardly have talked 
so freely to him if she had not, more or less uncon- 
sciously, grown into the habit of freedom with him. 
Therefore, from honor as well as from choice, he 
guarded her confidence. Not even with Hester did 
he share the gloryings and the misgivings that the 
girl’s burning spirit caused him. His understanding 
with the mother was a silent one. 

He was half sorry and half glad when the periods 
between the runaway episodes widened and widened 
and finally ceased. He missed his little companion; 
but, after all, she was not little any more, and in her 
maturing womardiood lay a growing pang and peril. 
William had never intended to marry. On general 
principles he did not want to. There was in his na- 
ture a deep-lying need for silence and solitude which 
had led him always to seek to preserve a wide margin 


THE HOMESTEAD 


34 

around his spirit. Instinctively he defended himself 
from the thought of interference. Moreover (this 
objection was no more clearly defined than the first, 
but was perhaps as potent), his mother already sup- 
plied all the feminine element that his home could 
stand. When, therefore, he found his pulses begin- 
ning to throb at the touch of Barbara’s hand, he was 
both startled and ashamed, and took himself gravely 
to task. This was unworthy, preposterous. It of- 
fended against the beautiful nature of the relation 
between the girl and himself, it threatened his soul’s 
precious independence, it boded discord and unhappi- 
ness, he must not allow it to be. How hopeless, any- 
way ! The traits that he marked more and more clear- 
ly in Barbara were such as he thought he never could 
satisfy, save by counsel and sympathy. She must 
never even be asked to share his narrow lot. All very 
well. Lovers may reason conclusively with them- 
selves, and come to quite final decisions. Unless the 
little god who lighted the flame in their hearts himself 
applies the fatal extinguisher, they have no choice but 
to go on kneeling and worshiping. In spite of him- 
self, William thrilled every time he detected in Bar- 
bara a relenting into household ways. 

He sighed, as he turned in at his gate and glanced 
at the kitchen windows. It was long past his mother’s 
bedtime; but she was evidently still up, waiting for 
him. He stopped in the dooryard a minute, as if to 
divest himself of one mood before he braced himself 
to receive another; then he squared his shoulders, 
opened the door^ and entered the kitchen. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


35 


It would have been hard to say why the interior of 
his house lacked the comfort and dignity of the Mar- 
shall homestead. It was quite as carefully furnished 
and rather more carefully kept; its floor and walls 
and all its appurtenances shone with cleanliness. The 
lamp on the table burned brightly — a Rochester burn- 
er with a white shade; the polished tins on the wall 
reflected the radiance accurately; even the stove man- 
aged to get as notable an effect of brilliance out of 
its blackness as the lamp-shade out of its effulgence. 
William blinked dazzled eyes. But there was no in- 
vitation in all this glittering tidiness ; the spirit shrank 
from it as involuntarily as the eyes. How should 
one want to sit down, when all the chairs held them- 
selves rigidly aloof against the wall? 

Martha Sloan, William’s mother, had imposed her 
command upon one of the chairs (she was afraid of 
nothing), and had summoned it to the side of the 
table, and was sitting on it. On it, not in it; for it 
had nothing but a hard surface, no bowels of com- 
passion. Its uncompromising back rivaled the shoul- 
ders of the woman who occupied it. She was darn- 
ing stockings. Her hard, thin hands, rather mis- 
shapen from much housework, went swiftly but care- 
fully back and forth, setting fresh stitches to work 
with countless predecessors in the elaborate recon- 
struction of outworn heels and toes. So far as the 
tension of her thin gray hair would allow, her fore- 
head was puckered with solicitude; and her straight 
lips were compressed, whether from absorption in her 
task or in her thoughts, it was impossible to say. She 


THE HOMESTEAD 


36 

was not a restful presence, but at least she explained 
the room; and there is always a certain satisfaction in 
the obvious working of cause and effect. William was 
subject to frequent fits of annoyance with his mother's 
kitchen; but when he looked at his mother herself, he 
knew that her environment was inevitable, and he gave 
over fretting against it. 

He said nothing, as he came in to-night; and for a 
minute his mother said nothing, either. She did not 
flatter him by greeting him, until she had finished the 
stitch she was just placing. Then she deposited her 
hands and her stocking in her lap, and looked at him 
sharply. 

^Well?" 

Her voice had all the assurance and challenge of an 
authorized Day of Judgment. 

But William was an unresponsive sinner, not mind- 
ed to confess. 

‘'Oh, mother! what's the use?" he said somewhat 
wearily. “It's so late. And you know all about it. I 
sent word to you." 

He did not sit down; but went and took a drink 
from a tin dipper in a pail of spring water in the 
sink, and turned toward his bedroom stairs. 

“William !" His mother arrested him with empha- 
sis and decision. “That’s no tone of voice to use 
toward your mother. I've sat up for you. Now I 
want to know what you've been doing, and what ex- 
cuse you can offer for taking all my cream cheese and 
sponge cake." 

“I sent word to you," William repeated. His man- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


37 

ner still continued to hint at an immediate departure, 
but his voice acquiesced in discussion in spite of him- 
self. “Barbara Marshall 

“Had rim away.’’ 

His mother anticipated his statement, and robbed it 
of all the conciliation which he might have managed 
to give it. Scorn capped scorn in her three words. 

“Well.” 

William acquiesced again. There was nothing else 
to do. 

“Oh, William! aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I 
don’t speak for her; for, in spite of her twenty years, 
she’s just a lawless baby. But you’re a sober man, 
and you ought to know better than to humor her. 
She’s just trying to lead you on, anyway. She ” 

But here it was manifest that acquiescence was not 
necessarily William’s only method of dealing with his 
mother. He turned as sharply as she could ever have 
turned, and silenced her imperiously. 

“Mother, that is not true.” 

The two confronted each other a minute, looking 
transiently alike in spite of their really fundamental 
difference of build. Their eyes were equally unfal- 
tering. Then the mother withdrew. There was no 
suggestion of capitulation in the silent dignity with 
which she gathered up her sewing and put her work- 
basket away. Rather, there was an offended rebuke. 
She emphasized her authority by her failure to assert 
it. But the son knew himself the victor. 

Perhaps he guessed at the reason why; and that, 


38 THE HOMESTEAD 

in its turn, was the reason why his manner softened, 
and why he took his mother’s candle from her and 
carried it to her bedroom door. His mother loved 
him. When one loves with a nature like Martha 
Sloan’s, one finds life difficult. 


w 


B arbara knelt in her mother’s garden, weeding 
vigorously. The hour was early; the sun had 
not yet wholly vanquished the dew, and the shadows 
of the elm trees lay cool upon the grass. Even the 
old house had the serene look of freshly renewed 
youth, which clarifies everything in the early morn- 
ing. But Barbara had been up for hours. She had 
helped her mother get breakfast, then she had washed 
the dishes and tidied the kitchen. After that she had 
cared for the milk in the little dairy house down by 
the brook ; and now she was turning her attention to 
the flower garden. 

An ardor of service is wont to characterize the first 
reaction of honest souls who have sinned and are 
sorry. This is good, always very good; but nothing 
to be elated over until it proves itself something more 
than the swing of the pendulum. Hester Marshall 
had often seen Barbara tackle her flower garden. She 
had learned to watch her, for her young zeal was not 
directed by any great amount of experience or wis- 
dom; and she was quite as apt to uproot a foxglove 
as a dandelion. Moreover, the mother had learned 
to expect that, in a few days, the ravaged beds would 
be left as dependent as ever upon their rightful mis- 
tress, their recent, impetuous ministrant having aban- 
39 


40 


THE HOMESTEAD 


doned them. Therefore, when this morning she saw 
Barbara put on a big straw hat and take a weeding 
fork and trowel, she hovered near a convenient win- 
dow, watching anxiously, with a little smile in her 
eyes. Hester loved her daughter, but she loved her 
garden too. 

For some time all went well. Barbara applied her 
first attention to a border where all the small plants 
were as unmistakably weeds as the large plants were 
hardy perennials. While she was busy here, Hester 
sewed quietly. But when she moved on, her daunt- 
less air expressing unabated energy and determina- 
tion, her mother dropped her sewing, came and stood 
close to the window a moment, then turned and went 
out hastily through the nearest door. 

‘‘Barbara!” she called. “Don’t forget that that’s 
an annual bed. It’s full of young plants.” 

“Oh, you poor mummy 1” Barbara sat back on her 
heels, and laughed up at her mother. “Have you been 
watching me, worried to death? Well, I don’t won- 
der, dear. But you needn’t have — this time. I was 
just coming in to ask you which leaves would be 
likely to belong to nasturtiums and which to chic- 
ory.” 

“Just as if you could learn from my telling!” 

Hester smiled responsively back at her daughter. 
It was the first time since yesterday’s escapade that 
she had directly challenged the girl’s face, and she 
held her gaze steadily for a minute. There was this 
about Barbara: she would always meet scrutinizing 


THE HOMESTEAD 


41 

eyes, and if she thought their question was fair, she 
would answer it. 

‘‘Do you mind if I come and work with you?^^ The 
mother’s voice had a pondering note, as if she had 
detected some new thing in her daughter’s face. 
“Then we can consult each other as we go along.” 

“Mind?” 

Barbara snatched the big hat from her head and 
gave it to her mother. Then she handed her the 
gardening tools, and ran to the woodshed for a fresh 
supply. In a few minutes the two women were work- 
ing side by side, while the shadows of the elm trees 
moved dreamily over them and the old house brooded 
above them. 

“I wish I really loved gardening,” Barbara said by 
and by. “As you do, I mean,” she added quickly, evi- 
dently fearing that her words might sound ungra- 
cious. “I do love it dearly for your sake. But gar- 
dens know how you feel about ’em.” 

“Don’t they?” Hester glanced first at her plants, 
then at her daughter, as if she would like to reconcile 
them. “But, being so clever, this garden probably 
knows that you are too young yet to care for it. It is 
patient; it can wait.” 

“Oh, mother!” 

Barbara dropped her trowel. She looked up and 
met her mother’s eyes pleadingly. But when the lat- 
ter held their gentle, steady gaze, the girl changed her 
mind about going on with her expostulation. 

“I can’t tell you how that made me feel,” she said, 
returning to her work a little shamefacedly. “I can’t 


42 


THE HOMESTEAD 


understand it, myself. I don^t — oh, mother! I don't 
want it to wait." 

It was characteristic of Barbara that, having re- 
nounced her expostulation, she should reclaim it in 
the next breath. But she spoke in a much more sub- 
dued voice than she had at first intended. 

Hester made no reply for a minute. She was 
thinning out poppies, and the task engrossed her at- 
tention. Perhaps, too, she felt that a garden conver- 
sation must be the saner for long, breezy, fragrant 
pauses. 

“I hated gardening when I was your age," she said 
by and by, speaking slowly and reluctantly, her voice 
a curious mixture of brave concession to her daugh- 
ter and pained apology to her garden. 

‘‘Did you, mother?" 

Barbara was plainly surprised. Again she dropped 
her trowel, and this time she did not at once resume 
it. Her eyes took their turn at challenging her 
mother. But Hester did not look up; she went on 
weeding steadily. 

“Indeed, yes," she answered, in a level tone. “I 
hated housework too, and staying at home. I was a 
good deal like you. I never ran away for whole days ; 
but I was always taking long walks, and planning still 
longer ones. I wanted to go away." 

“Mother!" Barbara sank down on the grass, and 
looked across the bed at her mother with an eager 
expression. “But then what happened?" Her tone 
implied that something cataclysmic must have made 


THE HOMESTEAD 


43 

the difference between that long-ago woman and the 
one before her now. 

This time Hester did look up. The glance that she 
gave her daughter was full of significance. 

‘‘Why, I met your father,” she answered. 

The statement was surely simple enough, familiar, 
obvious; it could hardly be called news to Barbara. 
Of course her mother had met her father: hence their 
whole family life. But it makes all the difference in 
the world how an obvious statement is expressed. 
For nothing that really matters is obvious at heart, 
knowing itself to be forever a divine surprise. Hes- 
ter's glance and tone had lifted the veil of the com- 
monplace from her marriage, and had given her 
daughter a breathless glimpse into that which could 
never be anything but glorious news. She had evi- 
dently done this on purpose. Her delicate face 
flushed with the effort. 

Barbara flushed too. A rosy tide suffused her bare 
throat and cheeks, mounting to her forehead. She 
sat with her hands clasped about her knees, and her 
eyes in the grass where, in shy reverence and con- 
sternation, they had fallen from her mother's. For a 
long minute or two neither woman spoke. 

To most girls of twenty thoughts of love are by no 
means unfamiliar. But Barbara's was a virginal na- 
ture, pure with the purity of fire rather than of snow. 
She had had her suitors (she was too beautiful to 
escape), but she had never easily recognized them as 
such; and when they had emphasized their attitude, 
she had turned from them in dislike. It was actually 


44 


THE HOMESTEAD 


true that she had never, until this morning, faced and 
contemplated even the abstract question of marriage. 

Hester watched her. The mother’s heart misgave 
her that she should have been the one to cause that 
flush to dye her daughter’s cheeks. She knew her 
own reverence before the reserve of a maiden soul. 
But, after all, women must be brave as well as rev- 
erent. She was not sorry that she had spoken. By 
and by she spoke again. 

‘‘The garden is right, Barbara” — her tone was 
grave, yet easy, calculated to relieve the tension of 
the situation without disparaging it — “perfectly right 
in waiting for you. It understands ; it is very wise in 
human ways. By and by you will be glad to settle 
down and strike your roots as deep as the larkspur.” 

“Oh! for the matter of that” — Barbara detected a 
chance to escape from her disquieting revery, and 
seized upon it — “for the matter of that, I feel already 
as if my tap-root reached at least to China.” 

She rocked herself slightly from side to side, as if 
she were testing her depth, and smiled whimsically. 
Then she reflected. 

“Perhaps that’s it,” she continued. “Perhaps my 
roots have come out in China, and are calling to me 
to come after them. I’d love to go to China.” 

“But, no.” She likewise dismissed this notion. 
“No, of course I belong here. I am like one of the 
trees or the boulders. You needn’t worry, mother. 
The old place will never let me go.” 

“You love it, Barbara?” 

Hester’s tone was doubtful, because Barbara’s had 


THE HOMESTEAD 


45 

been so complex, pervaded most of all with a zealous 
resignation which did not quite convince. 

‘‘Yes.’’ 

The girl hesitated. That was bad. But then she 
suddenly sprang to her feet, and turned toward the 
old house. 

“Oh, yes, yes!” she cried. 

She seemed to be returning the gaze of some liv- 
ing comrade, instead of meeting the impassive glitter 
of the kitchen windows. 

Hester drew a long breath. She had also stopped 
weeding now, and was sitting on the grass, openly 
watching her daughter. Again her heart stirred at 
the new look of growth and maturity and service 
which she had glimpsed in the girl’s face an hour be- 
fore and which returned to it. But all she said was, 
“That’s good, Barbara,” in a quiet voice. 

Being on her feet, Barbara resumed her mood of 
activity. 

“It must be time to begin to get dinner,” she said, 
with a practical, businesslike air. “I’ll go and do it, 
mother. You stay here in the garden. Only, don’t 
work too hard.” 

She stooped to look under the brim of her mother’s 
hat, and shook her head at her. 

“You’re tired already. Please stop and rest. The 
sun is getting hot.” 

Hester returned her daughter’s kiss. Demonstra- 
tion was not inherent in the Marshall character, but 
Barbara had an occasional way of demanding it. 
Then she turned away to the kitchen; and the mother 


THE HOMESTEAD 


46 

collected her gardening tools, pulled a last weed or 
two, started to rise, stopped, straightened a plant, once 
more started and stopped to remove a broken leaf, 
and at last, with many a hesitating, backward, linger- 
ing look, got herself to her feet. 

One wonders if the love of gardens is not almost 
always significant of disappointment somewhere — a 
tender, healing substitute for something missed in 
life. Childless women love gardens, and stranded old 
men, and unsuccessful artists. Hester would have 
said that she loved hers out of the very fulness of 
life; but perhaps she forbore to investigate the baf- 
fled interests, the futile curiosities, the un formulated 
sympathies, that found their gracious outlet in her 
plants and flowers. Never, for one moment, since her 
return from her unique voyage with her father, had 
she wanted to leave her husband again. So that, if 
her world-wide interests were baffled, the denial was 
heartily, joyously made. Nevertheless, native in- 
stincts do not cease to exist for being coaxed under- 
ground, any more than a brook dries up in a similar 
situation; and, like the brook, they sometimes burst 
forth in unexpected places. People of nimble spirits, 
who cannot travel and so refresh themselves, must 
create something. A garden is a sort of creation. 
Hester Marshall created hers with earnest devotion. 

It responded to her very beautifully. Barbara was 
right when she divined that gardens are jealous and 
sensitive; they demand all or nothing. But they are 
generous too; they do not object to filling gaps, to 
slaking thirsts that once longed for other fountains. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


47 


Rather, indeed, they delight in the tender office of 
compensation; they find a sweet triumph in minister- 
ing to needs beyond their ken. Hester’s garden knew 
that it stood for more than it was, that it served its 
mistress symbolically as well as literally; and it was 
very humble and proud, requiting her joyously. There 
was not such another garden in the whole country- 
side. Rank upon rank of glowing hollyhocks, masses 
of larkspur, heavy-headed peonies, foxgloves, roses, 
irises — all these things in their seasons, and many 
more, made the plot behind the old house a realm of 
enchantment. 

Hester was at work among the blossoming colum- 
bines, when her husband came in from the fields and 
stopped beside her. 

‘‘Where’s Barbara?” he asked. 

“In the kitchen, getting dinner,” Hester replied, 
looking up with a smile. “She’s even sorrier than 
usual to-day. 

“In fact,” she continued, when Henry said noth- 
ing, but stood, looking thoughtfully down at her, “she 
seems to me different. I can’t tell quite why; I’ve 
been wondering about it. It’s as if I saw the begin- 
nings of a bud in her eyes. For such a long time, 
just wild leaves and leaves, and then at last a bud.” 

“I suppose you mean by that”— Henry spoke a lit- 
tle impatiently, but with affection — “that she s be- 
ginning to grow up.” 

“Exactly !” 

Hester slowly rose to her feet; aad then, with an- 


48 THE HOMESTEAD 

other of her garden after-thoughts, swiftly stooped 
again. 

‘Well, Fm sure it’s time !” 

“Oh, Henry!” Her husband’s tone brought Hes- 
ter erect, squ.arely facing him. “She’s only twenty. 
And, really, going off for the day is a very little 
thing.” 

The mother’s tone was as defensive as the father's 
had been critical. 

“She’s the oldest of the family, and that means 
that she ought to be mature for her age. Instead of 
that, she’s a child.” 

Henry was not to be disarmed; he knit his sturdy 
brows. 

“As for it’s being a little thing,” he went on imme- 
diately, “of course it would be in any one else, though 
nobody else would be likely to do it; but in Barbara 
it shows a tendency which I don’t like. I thought she 
had gotten over it; I thought it had been stamped 
out.” 

“One can’t stamp out tendencies,” Hester mused. 
“One can only divert them,” She glanced from her 
husband to her garden. “I wish,” she submitted in 
a sudden, soft rush of confidence, “that Barbara would 
marry William Sloan.” 

“Has he ever asked her ?” 

“Oh! I don’t know.” 

Hester recoiled from this crude, masculine han- 
dling of the case. She could not even go on to say, 
“But I’m sure he loves her.” Instead, she made all 
possible haste to rescue the delicate subject by chang- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


49 


ing it. Her next abrupt question swung far afield 
even from her own immediately preceding thoughts. 

‘‘Are you quite sure, Henry, that you are right in 
making Barbara your heir?” 

It was only a sudden revulsion of feeling, only a 
blind need to shield something precious, that could 
ever have brought this inquiry so baldly from Hes- 
ter’s lips. She caught her breath instantly, and would 
probably have made a third leap, changing the sub- 
ject again, if her husband had given her time. But 
he could be as quick as she, when he was really 
touched. 

“Hester!” He frowned in good earnest, looking 
like one of the rugged mountains under a thunder 
cloud. “I thought we had settled and finished that 
question long ago.” 

“Well, never mind, Henry.” 

Hester sighed. She had not settled the question; 
but, then, she and Henry were one. She knit her own 
delicate brows. The effect was like the passing of a 
summer breeze over the face of a meadow. 

“Look here, Hester.” Henry’s face was not as 
conciliating as his words and tone tried to be. “Aren’t 
you satisfied, after all? Didn’t I convince you? The 
Marshall homestead has never failed to pass on to 
the oldest child. Moreover, Reuben, with all his good 
points, hasn’t got half the real stuff in him that Bar- 
bara has. Farming, like everything else, takes genius, 
if it’s going to be made to succeed. Barbara’s got 
genius : spirit, ideas, the pluck to go ahead and make 


THE HOMESTEAD 


50 

experiments, the grit to learn from failure. Why, 
she'd be a perfect farmer already, if only 

Yes, if only! Hester sighed once more, turning 
away. The argument was familiar to her. Too fa- 
miliar. Henry enjoyed reviewing and airing his fa- 
vorite, accurate deductions. And his “if only" sig- 
nified no misgiving, no lurking doubt, but rather a 
manly determination to anticipate and prevent all 
possible mischances. If only Barbara could be sub- 
dued to a proper contentment; very well, then, of 
course she must be. But Hester had her dread of 
“if only's," her sense of impotence before them. 

Barbara looked up and smiled when her parents 
entered the kitchen. She was lifting a stove lid with 
one hand, and with the other pushing a stick of wood 
in among the flames. In her blue checked apron she 
looked very domestic. 

“You were almost late," she said. “Reuben was 
beginning to be impatient." 

Reuben made no apology at this rallying accusa- 
tion. He had washed his hands immaculately for his 
mid-day meal; and, being unwilling to soil them again, 
sat with them idle before him, waiting. He did not 
wait gracefully. He glanced at the kitchen clock, 
which stood at a quarter past twelve. 

“Never mind, Reuben." Henry slapped his son’s 
rigid young shoulder — not because he wanted to, for 
Reuben rather annoyed him in a mood like this, but 
because he thought the shock would be good for him. 
“Even the sun doesn't go by the clock; and even the 
seasons have to wait now and then." 


THE HOMESTEAD 


51 


‘‘Lord !” he said to himself in the woodshed, whith- 
er he went to wash his own hands and face. “Fd as 
soon see a threshing machine in charge of my farm 
as Reuben.’" 

An hour later, when Reuben had long since re- 
turned to the fields and Barbara had made her mother 
go and lie down and then had washed the dinner 
dishes, singing softly under her breath, Henry came 
and stood on the threshold of the kitchen door. 

“Why, daddy!” Barbara rinsed and wrung the 
dish-cloth and hung it on its nail. Then she went to 
her father’s side, and slipped her arm through his. 
“You around here yet? What’s the matter? Don’t 
you feel well?” 

But there was no anxiety in her ton^, for her 
father’s face was ruddy. 

“Well enough, yes.” He patted her hand, and 
drew her out into the yard, under the shade of the 
trees. “But Fm not so young as I once was, and it 
sometimes seems to me that I might as well begin to 
take things a bit easier. What’s the use of being 
fifty-six; above all, what’s the use of having two 
grown-up children, if you can’t indulge yourself?” 

Barbara did not answer. She leaned musingly on 
her father’s arm, and rubbed her cheek against his 
shoulder, as they strolled down toward the gate. He 
and she were great friends; and perhaps, like most of 
her sex, she thought her caress was reason enough 
for his lingering. But when he spoke again his voice 
admonished her. 


52 


THE HOMESTEAD 


‘'Barbara, daughter, you understand that, after my 
death, the old place will be yours?” 

Barbara looked up quickly. Had her first ques- 
tion been to the point, after all? Was her father not 
feeling well? But his clear eyes reassured her. She 
met them steadily, while she dismissed the anxiety 
which she had feared to face, and pondered the sum- 
mons which she did not understand. The statement 
implied in her father^ s question was no news to her; 
she had been brought up to think of herself as the 
heir to the homestead. But his gaze presented a crisis 
which she had never yet been asked to meet. “Yes, 
father,” was her obvious answer, the answer which, 
almost of their own accord, her lips opened to frame. 
But she surprised them and herself by hedging a 
little. 

“Reuben could carry on the name,” she suggested, 
her troubled glance seeking the ground. 

“But Reuben ” 

Henry began hastily, with some warmth, being 
urged by two strong emotions. But then he remem- 
bered that, even if he, as the father, was perhaps jus- 
tified in criticizing his son, it was not seemly to fos- 
ter anything but affection in a sister’s breast. More- 
over, Barbara’s failure to spring to the high demand 
he made upon her was probably not so amenable to 
anger as to gentleness. He curbed himself. 

“You’re the oldest child, and the homestead has 
always gone to the first-born,” he said. “And, any- 
way, Barbara, you’re just cut out for a farmer.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


53 

The first part of this speech was perfunctorily spo- 
ken, but the second part came with a rush. 

'T 

Barbara opened wide eyes. 

‘‘Why, yes, girl; above most folks, you! Farming's 
a great work. It takes ideas and gumption. It’s very 
exciting. I pity the poor bored city fellows you read 
about in the papers, who go to gambling houses. If 
they only knew how exciting it was to gamble with 
the weather, with potato bugs and cut worms and 
woodchucks, they’d all of them turn farmers.” 

Barbara’s face kindled doubtfully. She had never 
heard her father talk like this before. She knew that 
his life interested him, that he was heart and soul 
committed to its development ; but she had never real- 
ized what a profound enthusiasm he felt for it. His 
Marshall reserve had carefully hidden all the zest be- 
neath a cloak of the matter-of-course. His present out- 
spokenness gave her a new point of view. She turned 
her eyes slowly from his boyishly irradiated face, and 
looked out over the broad meadows, lying beyond the 
fence. Were they a possible arena for thrilling ad- 
venture? She was not at all insensible of the com- 
pliment which her father paid her. She turned back 
to him and smiled responsively. 

“You see, Barbara, don’t you?” he coaxed. The 
coaxing of one who is used to command is irresist- 
ible. “You get the idea? It’s a great one, believe 
me. You’ll like it, if you once take it up. Come 
now, girl; tell me you’re going to give over playing 
with childish notions of running away, and settle 


54 


THE HOMESTEAD 


down and become a good home-keeping lass. Tell 
me you’re going to be willing to take charge of the 
old place some day.” 

Barbara still hesitated. Her hand lay in her 
father’s arm; but she turned wholly away from him, 
looking out over pastures and fields, and then side- 
wise at the old house. There was a curious struggle 
in her young face. The pastures did nothing to de- 
tain her scrutiny of them; her glance traversed them 
swiftly. But at the house her eyes came to a pause; 
and for several minutes she gazed steadily, without 
moving or speaking. Then, ‘‘Yes, father,” she said 
very simply, just as her lips had advised her to say in 
the beginning. 


V 


H ester marshall’s death was a shock to 

the whole community, even to the village doctor. 
She had not been strong for some years; but she had 
never complained of feeling any particular indisposi- 
tion, and people had grown used to her pallor and her 
quiet ways. 

She was ill only twenty-four hours. During the 
first five or six, her husband *and Reuben were away 
in a remote wood-lot, and the doctor was likewise out 
of reach on a mountain-side. Barbara was not greatly 
alarmed. She had often seen her mother faint, and 
she thought she knew just what to do for her. After- 
wards she looked back on that morning as on the 
open threshold of eternity. It was awful, but very 
sweet, to remember those lingering hours. 

Perhaps Hester herself did not know what had hap- 
pened to her. If she did, she concealed the knowl- 
edge, sparing her daughter as long as possible, and 
making the most of the solemn opportunity. She did 
not suffer much, save from weakness. She lay very 
still, and kept her eyes closed and talked fragmen- 
tarily. 

“Have you finished the dishes, dear? Well, then, 
get some sewing and come and sit beside me. Yes, I 
feel better. But, no, I don’t want to sleep. I’d rather 
have you near. 


55 


THE HOMESTEAD 


56 

'‘Barbara"’ — after a long pause, during which the 
girl sat in her cool blue gingham dress, rocking and 
sewing — "youVe been a good child lately.” 

"Yes, haven’t I?” Barbara looked up with a smile. 
"Well, I guess I’m growing up.” She nodded soberly. 

"I’m very glad.” Hester tried to look up too, and 
gave a little sigh. "But you’ve never suffered. You 
can’t really grow up until you have suffered.” 

"Oh!” Barbara winced and dropped her sewing, 
and her rocking-chair came to a pause. There was 
another long silence. Then, "Well, I guess I’m not 
afraid,” the young voice answered slowly. 

"No, I’m sure you’re not.” The mother’s voice 
was quiet and dreamy, as if she were aware of some- 
thing infinitely reassuring and soothing. Her words 
trailed off into silence, and she seemed to sleep for a 
while. 

"Barbara” — once more the gentle tones recalled the 
girl’s attention — "it’s mostly women who suffer and 
grow up. Men don’t always. Your father has never 
grown up.” 

"Why!” Barbara was startled. She stopped and 
took counsel with her own thoughts. "That’s so; he 
hasn’t, mother!” she cried, with a ripple of sympa- 
thetic amusement. 

Hester opened her eyes with an effort, and the two 
women looked at each other. "Oh, my daughter,” 
the mother thought, "if only I could, at the same time, 
help you grow up, and stay to enjoy you when you 
have done sol” 

Another "if only!” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


57 

“He needs lots of care/’ she concluded gently, “and 
lots of — well, humoring/’ She smiled underneath her 
closed eyes. 

For a long time after this colloquy had likewise 
been sealed with silence Barbara sat with her hands 
in her lap. The new conception of her father as a 
big, overgrown boy, held her imagination. Now and 
then she smiled to herself. She was reviewing her 
whole experience from a new point of view. 

But Hester had dismissed the theme. Doubtless 
she realized, consciously or unconsciously, that the 
time for deeply pondering any one theme — save pres- 
ently the Theme of themes — was over for her. When 
she next spoke she recalled her daughter from the con- 
crete to the abstract. 

“There’s something else besides sorrow that women 
are made for,” she murmured. “That’s love, Bar- 
bara.” 

She fairly had to force her eyes open; but, when 
once the gates were ajar, her spirit looked out as 
bravely as ever. She scrutinized her daughter’s face. 
No use! The wide girlish eyes had no responsive 
reflections in them this time. 

“Well, remember it, anyway, dear,” she admon- 
ished. “And love means a home. A home. There 
isn’t anything in the world to take the place of a 
home.” 

Whether it was the word “remember” that fright- 
ened her, or whether her mother’s increasing pallor 
at last began to make its effect, Barbara suddenly 
paused in her sewing, then knelt down beside the bed 


THE HOMESTEAD 


58 

and gazed with a mounting terror into the still face 
on the pillow. What was it? What was about to 
happen? Oh! where was her father? 

Once more Hester opened her eyes. 

‘‘Remember, you’re not going to be afraid,” she 
whispered, and fainted away again. 

When Henry and Reuben returned to the house 
they found Barbara perfectly white and perfectly self- 
possessed. 

“I sent for the doctor at seven o’clock,” she ex- 
plained. “Jamie Williams went for me. He was ex- 
pected home about noon. He must be here presently. 
Yes, she’s conscious now. You go in, father. Oh!” 
— for her father’s face overwhelmed her — “oh, my 
dear daddy! But you mustn’t let her see you look 
like that. We must make her happy to-day.” 

They did make her happy — all of them. Even 
Reuben helped. During the afternoon she lay with 
her hand in her husband’s, smiling at him every time 
she could get her eyes open, and frequently when she 
could not. She seemed to have very little to say. But 
people who have lived heart in heart have no need of 
last words. Barbara, for the most part, kept herself 
in the background. The priceless morning had been 
hers, and all the rest of the time belonged to her 
father. But now and then she and Reuben crept in 
and stood by the bed, and Barbara knelt and kissed 
the white, wandering hands. 

The doctor came and went. There was really noth- 
ing he could do; but, like every one else, he loved 
Hester. The neighbors came and went, too. Intru- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


59 

sion was an unknown word in the simple country vo- 
cabulary, but sympathy and helpfulness were very 
familiar. Barbara paid no attention to them; she 
hardly knew they were there. Once she looked up 
from the kitchen stove, where she was heating some 
water, and saw William Sloan, standing outside the 
kitchen door and looking in at her. She met his 
eyes absently; then, for the first time during that 
awful day her firm lips trembled. But he saved her 
at once. 

‘'Never mind, Barbara,’’ he said. “I see you don’t 
need me now, so I won’t come in. But I’ll hang 
around here; and if you want me, you just call.” 

She could not have called, however, and he spared 
her the necessity, when, in the early morning, her 
mother’s spirit slipped away. He came and looked 
at her where she stood, dazed, on the threshold of 
the room ; then he took her hand — almost as cold and 
unresponsive as Hester’s — and led her out of the 
house. 

The sun was just rising. Across the shoulders of 
the mountains long fingers of light struck slantwise 
and touched the world awake. The birds were sing- 
ing, the dew lay cool on the meadows, it was going 
to be a lovely day. Barbara turned and looked at the 
garden. Then her face broke into spasms of pain. 

“Oh, William! No! No!” she cried, and hid her 
face in his breast. 

He held her close. For him, too, the hour had 
lifted all feeling into the realm of the sublime and 
universal. He was to her all strength and comfort, 


6o 


THE HOMESTEAD 


and she was to him all sorrow and weakness and ap- 
peal. Their two individualities were well-nigh for- 
gotten. Thus, in great moments, God knows how to 
make His creatures simply the channels of His divin- 
ity. But when William bent his head to look compas- 
sionately at the smooth, half-hidden cheek, suddenly 
he flinched, the spell broke. Imperatively he released 
Barbara from his arms. He hovered near her all 
day, and through many succeeding days, but he did 
not touch her again. 

Thus it happened that life gave Barbara Marshall 
her first serious chance to grow up. She profited by 
it bravely, as soon as she had recovered from the first 
reeling shock and annihilation. For a month or two 
after her mother^s death, it seemed to her, not so 
much that she had lost something out of life, as that 
the whole structure of her existence had gone to pieces 
and had to be painfully picked up and put together, 
according to a new plan. She was bewildered, at a 
loss. God builds our first house of blocks for us ; we 
accept it complacently. Then He knocks it down and 
says, ‘‘Now build it for yourself.” Whereupon, weep- 
ing and protesting, we begin to live. 

But daily necessity is a good, insistent nurse; and 
Barbara laid her new foundation almost without 
knowing it. Her position, as feminine head of the 
house, brought no new duties upon her, for she had 
borne the brunt of the work before her mother's 
death; but it gave her a sobering sense of responsi- 
bility. Her father tried to help her at first. He had 
a parent's natural distrust of the daughter's ability as 


THE HOMESTEAD 


6r 

contrasted with the mother’s, and he was never one 
to doubt his own ability in any direction. It was his 
serious, blundering effort to rearrange the dishes on 
the pantry shelves that gave Barbara her first sur- 
prised intimation that she might possibly ever be able 
to smile again. She circumvented him tactfully; and 
he abandoned his attempt, not so much out of respect 
for her superior feminine skill as out of sheer mascu- 
line weariness with the task he had set himself. 

Barbara had to spend more or less time circum- 
venting her father these days. He was very difficult. 
Again and again she remembered her mother’s dying 
remark about the immortal boyishness of some men. 
Grief is made for the purpose of growth, and people 
who are not going to grow must not be held still to 
take sorrow bravely, but must be coaxed and beguiled 
into forgetting. So long as her father dwelt on the 
thought of her mother he was good for no manly 
sort of life and work. His face was tortured, his eyes 
were haunted with a helpless desolation that went to 
his daughter’s heart. She made one dreadful experi- 
ment of sitting beside him and holding his hand and 
talking about her mother; but the storm of dry sobs 
that presently shook him frightened her half to death, 
and she only^ saved the situation by wresting the sub- 
ject violently to the consideration of a new patent 
device for boiling sap. After that' she never let him 
linger about the kitchen or garden, but sent him 
promptly off to work; and, in the evenings, she took 
to playing cribbage with him. 

In the first completeness of her understanding that 


62 


THE HOMESTEAD 


he must be blinded and shielded, she thought of de- 
stroying the garden. It was William who saved the 
situation. He came on the girl, crying her heart out 
under the syringa bush, with a great spade beside her. 
One uprooted fox-glove lay in the garden path. 

‘‘It’s only the first one that hurts so frightfully,” 
she sobbed, when she saw him. “I guess I can do 
the rest by and by. Oh, William! you do it for me.” 

He understood at once — when had he ever failed to 
understand Barbara? — and he took counsel with him- 
self whether he dared sit down beside her. He de- 
ferred his decision until he had put the uprooted fox- 
glove back in its hole and had brought it some water ; 
then he seated himself on the other end of the garden 
bench. 

Barbara watched him, her tears drying on her 
stormy face. 

“But, William,” she murmured. 

“Yes, dear, I know. But really you must not do 
that. Believe me, you mustn’t.” 

“Not even for father’s sake? It hurts him.” 

“Not for any one’s sake. This garden belongs to 
your mother and God. It has a soul of its own. You 
must never dare.” 

“Oh, William!” Barbara had no compunction 
about leaving her end of the bench. She slid close to 
her companion. “It is wonderful how you make 
things come right.” 

But poor William looked away with a white face. 

It must, indeed, have been true that the garden had 
a sweet, resolute soul of its own ; or else the soul that 


THE HOMESTEAD 63 

had vanished continued to care for it. It had never 
blossomed so bravely as during that first summer of 
its destitution. Though perhaps destitution is a strong 
word. Barbara worked among the flowers, and did 
her best to surmount the difficulties that lay in her 
natural ineptitude and inexperience. She deluged the 
hollyhocks with whale oil soap and the roses with 
Bordeaux mixture. But no amount of deliberate zeal 
can ever make up for a lack of spontaneity; and the 
garden knew that Barbara did not love it for itself. 
The sight of her mother’s gardening gloves was need- 
ed to remind her to water the sweet peas. 

It was so with the care of the house. Something 
was always needed to spur her to domestic enterprise 
— as, for instance, the sight of her father fumbling in 
the china-closet. She was not lazy; she was not even 
indifferent, when once her attention was roused. She 
was simply negligent. The recurring duties of every- 
day life took care of themselves, providing their own 
spurs of immediate necessity. There was never any 
failure in the promptness and excellence of Barbara’s 
meals, nor in the cleanliness of her rooms and dishes. 
But Reuben had to remind her that the crab-apples 
were ripe and ready to be made into jelly. 

What was the matter ? she wondered sometimes, as 
she sat in her favorite nook by her grandfather’s an- 
chor in the front yard. She was a woman now, quite 
grown up; why did she not feel any keener zest for 
the usual interests of a woman’s life? The criticism 
that had attended her developing childhood and girl- 
hood had encouraged in her a certain natural ten- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


64 

dency toward introspection, and she often challenged 
herself. But she could not answer her own question. 
She felt humbled and ashamed at the lack which she 
perceived in herself. 

What did she want, then? What was the nature of 
the secret, imperious urging that made the immediate 
opportunities of her life so unattractive to her? 
Sometimes, when she put the question, she looked up 
at the impassive crests of the mountains about her as 
if she found their immutability intolerable. But she 
never could say exactly what she wanted of them or 
of herself; and it took but the sound of her father^s 
step to change her mood, transforming her into a lov- 
ing, self-forgetful daughter. Whatever else may or 
may not have been spontaneous about Barbara, her 
love for her father was a springing fountain. 

The old house knew how to govern her, too. Im- 
aginative from her babyhood, she had always thought 
of her home as one of the most important personal 
factors in her life; and now that she was left so much 
alone with it, the influence grew. She spent a good 
deal of time wandering through the old rooms, trying 
vaguely to propitiate them. Her mother’s bedroom 
opened out of the kitchen, and here she took refuge 
continually, sitting between the rather shabby old ma- 
hogany bureau and the big mahogany bed with its 
patchwork counterpane, and clinging to the memory 
of the dear face that had lately lain there. As she 
lingered, she busied herself with the mending of her 
father’s clothes or the ordering of his bureau drawers. 

But sometimes she suddenly laid down her work. 


THE HOMESTEAD 65 

and rose and opened the door that led out into the 
narrow front hall, and went across to the parlor that 
occupied the other corner of the front of the house. 
Here she made straight for her grandfather’s shells, 
lifting them eagerly from the prim center-table on 
which they lay alongside a hand-painted cup and 
saucer and an illustrated copy of “Evangeline,” and 
holding them, one by one, to her ear. The parlor was 
not a genial apartment. It was used only on state 
occasions, and was therefore continually on its good 
behavior; it knew what was expected of it. Its old 
chair and its fine old mahogany sofa, covered with 
hair-cloth, held themselves at discreet conversational 
angles, inviting nothing but formal remarks. The 
light came dimly through its shaded windows, and itsi 
big old fireplace yawned in bored vacuity behind a 
bowl of feathery asparagus. Its air was chill and 
musty. But Barbara liked it for its reserve. It did 
not torment her as did the more active kitchen. 

The latter apartment — scene of her own daily life 
and of that of all her ancestors — was often almost too 
much for her. It was the biggest room in the house, 
and, no matter how the sun poured in at the low west 
windows or how brightly the lamp burned at night, 
there were always shadows lurking somewhere. They 
were intensely alive, those shadows; and presences 
stirred in them, footsteps echoed, voices all but spoke. 
It would seem as if the matter-of-fact range and kit- 
chen table and tin and enamel dishes might have coun- 
teracted the spell which this place knew how to cast; 
but they really provided the outer and visible fetters 


66 THE HOMESTEAD 

for it. Sometimes, when Barbara was frying potatoes 
or baking a pie which she could not leave, the whole 
room, big and dark as it was, seemed to close in around 
her, and only her sense of immediate responsibility 
kept her from running away. 

She was too healthy minded to tolerate this sort of 
experience any more than was necessary ; and, as soon 
as she could, she went out of doors and sat by the 
anchor, where, nestling into the comforting curve of 
one of the great iron prongs, she faced her home, 
stared at it, stared it down, until its windows ceased 
to threaten, and its roof was once more benignant 
rather than oppressive. 

She and her father and Reuben grew very close 
to one another during the long winter after Hester’s 
death. They were no more solitary than their neigh- 
bors ; in fact, they were rather more frequently sought 
out. For Henry’s advice was needed in all the affairs 
of the township, and Reuben himself was beginning 
to be consulted by his comrades. But winter storms 
are authoritative, and this was a cruel winter. It 
laid a mandate of isolation on all the farmhouses. 
When the three were alone together, cut off by the 
smothering snow and the blinding wind, Barbara had 
to exert herself to keep her father occupied ; and thus 
she grew in womanly wisdom and dexterity. She 
cluttered her kitchen with a score of “labor-saving” 
devices, which she did not want in the least, but which 
she coaxed her father to think out and construct for 
her. His unconsciously growing dependence on her 
touched and warmed her. She loved to see his eyes 


THE HOMESTEAD 67 

turn instinctively to her. But of course his very ap- 
peal constituted the most imperative kind of a claim; 
and, the more he needed her, the more surely he ruled 
her. 

Even Reuben was softened by the brave intimacy 
of that pensive winter. He relaxed the young sever- 
ity of his usual criticisms of his sister, and conde- 
scended to play a part that was often quite brotherly. 


VI 


B arbara dreaded the spring. It was always a 
restless season with her; and this year its first 
intimations confirmed her fear that it was going to 
prove uncommonly fraught with trouble. 

There was her mother's garden. The sight of the 
first pushing tips of the awakening plants acted upon 
her like the turning of a sword in her heart. How 
cruel that the mere symbol should have such a prompt 
and vigorous resurrection, while the reality remained 
hidden, forever and evermore giving no sign! Yet 
she loved it too dearly to stay away from it. Each 
narcissus, each tulip, each peony she greeted with 
tears in her eyes. Like her mother, she stole time 
from the kitchen to weed and prune and trim and 
order the disheveled beds. Her interest was vicari- 
ous, but it was genuine. 

Having stolen so much time for this cause, how- 
ever, she could not manage to steal any more for her 
usual spring rambles on the mountains and in the 
woods; and this failure fretted her even more than 
she was aware. She had no lack of exercise and 
fresh air. Between the house and the garden every 
muscle was brought into play. But her spirit was 
fettered; it beat its wings, longing for leagues of 
mountainside and the full sweep of the wind. She 
68 


THE HOMESTEAD 69 

had never before failed to hunt and find the rare ar- 
butus on the crest of Sunset Hill. 

These troubles were serious, but they were nothing 
compared to the problem that faced her in May, and 
that, for a time, threatened to make an end of all her 
serenity. One of her Dakota cousins — her father’s 
second cousin’s son — came East on business, stopped 
to make a visit at the homestead, and, after a few 
weeks of rapidly increasing and very distressful inti- 
macy, asked her to marry him. 

He was quite an admirable young man — that was 
the worst of it : tall and strong, very good looking, a 
capable farmer, Dick Marshall by name. From the 
moment of his arrival, Henry openly delighted in 
him, and took every occasion to praise him to Bar- 
bara. 

^7ust the kind of man for a farm like this! I wish 
he could stay and help me. I need the stirring up of 
his western ideas. Don’t you like him, Barbara?” 

Oh, yes! she liked him — well enough. Liked him 
very much at first, when he treated her like the cousin 
she considered herself; liked him, unfortunately, less 
and less as he grew more intimate; liked him finally, 
one day, not at all; almost hated him. 

But was that the question — her liking or disliking? 
Were not bigger and more important issues at stake? 
Underneath all the eagerness and fire of her nature 
Barbara had her full share of the rather fatalistic 
passivity that plays such an important part in the New 
England temperament, particularly among mountain 
women. That which is to be, will be; that which 


70 


THE HOMESTEAD 


ought to be, must be. It was not for her to dispute 
or question the decisions of Destiny. Because of his 
strong will and because of the great love she bore 
him, her father had always acted as Destiny’s deputy 
to her ; and now she hardly knew how to begin to find 
him at fault. But she was very unhappy, more un- 
happy than she had supposed it was possible to be. 
Her grief for her mother had been single, unperplexed 
by distractions and doubts. It had simply called on 
her to bend her whole effort to the inevitable task of 
acceptance and adjustment. Now she was buffeted. 
Her father’s watchful eyes tormented her. Was she 
not bound to do that which would place a crown of 
contentment on his life? 

Nor was this quite the end of the matter, or the 
beginning — whichever way she tried to trace the hid- 
den force that urged her so curiously. There was 
more than herself or her father or mother at work 
within her. She knew very little in detail about her 
earlier ancestors, for their shadowy, dead affairs had 
never greatly interested her ; but she was not for noth- 
ing their lineal descendant. Whether she knew it 
and wished it or not, they went on living in her; and 
in spite of herself, she was obliged to share their in- 
terests. She half realized this now, groping blindly 
among the strange reluctances which made it so hard 
for her to obey the imperative impulse to reject Dick 
Marshall. The homestead, the family: these were 
the two great interests of her fathers, the two that 
were entirely one. They claimed her with the au- 
thority of an unbroken tradition. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


71 

Her misery was complicated by the fact that her 
duties, as hostess and housekeeper, prevented her from 
leaving the house for more than a few minutes at a 
time. She did not feel obliged to entertain her cous- 
in; he was a self-sufficient person, and could amuse 
himself. He spent many hours, working with Henry 
and Reuben in a manner that won their admiration. 
But she did feel obliged to feed him and keep order 
for him. Her position as sole woman on the place 
hampered her. 

And the house had become intolerable. It gath- 
ered up and embodied all the power against which she 
strove, all the tradition which formed so large and so 
hated a part of her nature. Left alone with it for 
hours, she felt smothered, oppressed. Two or three 
times she dropped her broom or her dish-cloth and 
ran out of the door, heading for the hills. But the 
garden always stopped her and turned her back. Her 
mother's roses admonished her that no Marshall 
woman must be deficient in hospitality. 

She was actually, sometimes, a little relieved when, 
at the end of a solitary afternoon, she saw her cousin 
returning through the gate. No mysterious spells 
could persist in the breezy presence of his young san- 
ity. But her relief never lasted long. It proved to be 
but the rebound from one kind of dismay to another. 
Before the young man had so much as put his foot 
over the threshold, her whole being was up in arms. 

^'Ah, Barbara, don't!” he coaxed sometimes. “You 
don't really hate me so much as all that. I don't be- 
lieve you hate me at all ; but, being a woman '' 


72 


THE HOMESTEAD 


At this point he found himself addressing empty 
but strangely electric air; and had no choice but to 
break off his speech, or finish it to the kitchen pump. 

As in the matter of her reluctance, so in the con- 
trary matter of her impulse, Barbara found herself 
urged by forces that transcended the present crisis. 
Not only her own immediate longing, but also a hid- 
den, boundless sea bade her cry ‘‘NoT* to every word 
of her cousin’s. A sea: that was it. It surged and 
clamored, rolling great waves to meet and drown 
every admonition. Her father, her mother, the old 
house, her conscience, even her fatalism seemed to 
confront it in vain. What was it ? Being, itself ? Bar- 
bara was too young and untutored to think very clear- 
ly about these matters; but she longed almost intol- 
erably at times to find and embark on this hidden sea, 
giving herself over to it. At such times she went out 
and sat by the old anchor, or entered the parlor and 
put one of the shells to her ear. 

‘‘You don’t like him, Barbara!” 

Her father spoke hesitatingly to her one evening, 
with a curious mixture of disappointment and impa- 
tience in his tone. 

Barbara stirred and sighed. She had fallen into a 
twilight revery on the steps. Dick and Reuben had 
gone to the village; and she and her father were left 
alone, the work of the day all finished. She also hes- 
itated a moment. Then, “No, father,” she decided to 
say, out of a vague, conflicting rumor of possible an- 
swers, impossible through their formlessness. 

“But why, girl?” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


73 


Henry’s impatience grew. He frowned a little. 

‘‘Oh ! I don’t know, father.” 

The answer was all that could have been expected 
of her. It ought to have been enough for any one 
who, himself, had ever loved. But Henry was a defi- 
nite man (perhaps he would have said that he knew 
just why he had loved Hester), and he had no respect 
for nebulosity. 

“Then if you don’t know,” he said concisely, “you 
ought to be willing to do what every one else knows 
would be a very good thing for you.” 

Barbara shrank a little — she was leaning against 
one of the pillars ; but she found nothing to say. Her 
father studied her. Perhaps he was sorry that he 
had spoken so emphatically. At any rate, he contin- 
ued more gently : 

“It really is just the thing for you, daughter. You’ll 
have to marry soon, for I think Reuben and Jenny 
Slocum are going to make a match. I’m getting old. 
I want to be able to stop pretty soon. If you hunted 
the world over, you couldn’t find a better farmer than 
Dick. Then there’s the name, you know. Barbara, 
you must have nothing but boys to begin with.” 

But there he, too, like Dick the evening before, 
found himself addressing empty air. Barbara had 
gone, like an arrow ; and in her room she was hiding 
her head in her pillow and weeping outraged tears. ‘ 


yll 


I T was, as usual, William who saved her. 

On one errand or another, he was now almost 
a daily visitor at the farm. His own farm adjoined, 
and he and Henry and Reuben had many things in 
common, so that he was accustomed to a frequent 
passing back and forth. But Dick's presence had a 
curiously magnetic effect upon him ; he seemed unable 
to keep away. Not that he had much to say to him, 
or seemed to like him particularly ; but simply .that he 
felt the necessity of keeping his eyes on him. Watch- 
ful and anxious, he hovered continually in the back- 
ground of the little family group. Henry could not 
understand his new ungracious persistence. 

One afternoon, he presented himself at the kitchen 
door when Barbara had just finished washing the 
dishes. The three Marshall men were out in the 
fields. 

“Did I leave my pruning shears here ?" he inquired. 
“You haven't seen them? Well, never mind; perhaps 
Reuben has them. How goes it, Barbara?" 

The last sentence of this little speech was spoken 
quite differently from the rest; though it was all di- 
rect and gentle enough, delivered with no wandering 
of the eyes in search of the missing shears. Friendly 
solicitude informed every syllable of the last words. 

74 


THE HOMESTEAD 


75 


Barbara did not reply at once. She had come to 
the door on William’s approach; and stood, looking 
out at him through the fine mesh of the screen. 

“William,” she said at last, unexpectedly enough, 
“I wish you were a woman.” 

William did not smile. Barbara’s eyes were too 
serious and appealing. Involuntarily, he drew his big 
frame into a somewhat more masculine pose than 
usual ; but all that he said was, meeting her mood, 

“You might try me, Barbara.” 

Then, suddenly, they both smiled. Barbara opened, 
the door and came out and stood beside him. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested. “I’m tired 
to death of the house. Where shall we go?” 

She looked up at her friend, as if she were giving 
her destiny into his hands; and he, looking down at 
her, accepted the responsibility. He led the way out 
through the front gate, down the road, and across a 
pasture which stretched away from the Marshall farm 
and commanded a view of another turn of the valley. 

Barbara walked very fast at first. She said little, 
but her bearing was eloquent of temporary relief and 
expansion above a persistent bond. She threw her 
head back and breathed deeply; but she still held her 
shoulders rigid. William watched her. He had ac- 
cepted the present guidance of her actions, but he 
regulated his control by a study of her mood. When 
it seemed to him that she had worked off the worst of 
her oppression, and when a fold of the hilly pasture 
had hid them from all backward glimpsing of the 
Marshall farm, he slackened his pace and called her 


76 THE HOMESTEAD 

attention to a mound of soft, deep turf underneath a 
tree. 

“Let^s rest awhile/* he said. can’t be a woman 
unless I sit down and give my mind to it.” 

Barbara laughed. The bodily exercise and the 
open spaciousness of earth and sky had cleared her 
brain and restored her poise. Her eyes were no longer 
brooding, though her lips were still firmly set. 

‘T wouldn’t really have you a woman for anything, 
William,” she said, surveying affectionately her com- 
panion’s big and rather awkward bulk. 

“Wouldn’t you? Well, I confess. I’m relieved.” 
He threw himself on the grass beside her, depositing 
his hat on a bush of prairie weed. “Because, if you 
wanted it, I should of course have to manage it some- 
how.” 

His tone implied a whimsical resignation which hid 
the earnestness that lay at the heart of it. 

“Poor William!” Barbara’s own voice responded 
to his implication, though perhaps her heart, hid even 
from herself, acknowledged his sincerity. “It’s hard 
lines, isn’t it, that you should always have to take 
care of me?” 

“Very.” He smiled and shook his head, not look- 
ing at her. 

“Well” — Barbara spoke slowly, hesitating, and 
choosing each word with a reluctance which showed 
that she did not like it, but that it was the least ob- 
jectionable expression she could find; a very lovely, 
girlish color suffused her cheeks — “well — I suppose — 
if I — marry — Dick — I shall be off your hands.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


77 


William rolled over and dug his elbows savagely 
into the moss.’ The statement was just what he had 
expected, what he had in fact deliberately gone out to 
hear to-day; but now that he had received it, he was 
infuriated by it. 

“Do you love him?’’ he asked, after a moment, in 
a stifled voice. 

Barbara winced; then she rallied, with an air of 
holding to some self-appointed task. 

“No,” she replied. 

“Well, I didn’t think you did” — ^William’s voice 
was hoarse with his inner struggle — “but I supposed 
you must, if you were willing to think of marrying 
him.” 

Barbara flushed still more deeply. She felt the 
significance of her friend’s remark. But, after a mo- 
ment, she refused to be shamed by it. 

“Love is selfish,” she said, speaking with digni^ 
and a certain high unassailability. “There are other, 
better motives that can make one do things.” 

William sat up. He felt that he was the one to be 
ashamed. He had brought Barbara out here to help 
her, and now he was girding at her. The proud in- 
tegrity of her sj)irit. challenged him. Here was a 
woman whom not even a loveless marriage could soil. 
For a moment he felt helpless before her. Then he 
set his lips. He had never yet failed to control her. 

“Barbara,” he said, “you’re pretty young yet, and 
you don’t know much about life. I don’t know any 
too much, myself. But I do know this : that God ex- 
presses Himself in our natures as urgently as in the 


THE HOMESTEAD 


78 

rivers and hills, and that our only chance of being 
true' to Him lies in being true to ourselves. Obedience 
is our first duty. We must, above everything else, be 
true to God.” 

Barbara brought her eyes back from the valley, 
and looked at William. This Avas a new kind of talk 
from him. She had lately surmised that his mind had 
a strong philosophical and religious bent, but her own 
young ignorance and inattention had never taken the 
trouble to investigate it. Now he was opening the 
way, himself, and bidding her follow. Since she would 
fain be mature and profound, looking into the causes 
of things, very well, she must be made to look deeper, 
even into the Cause of causes. 

‘Wes, William.” 

It was significant that, not knowing exactly what 
to say, she gained time by acquiescing. At least, she 
could never go very far wrong by acquiescing with 
William. She waited with attentive eyes. 

But — “That’s really all,” he surprised her by say- 
ing. “Think it over. You’ll understand it. You 
half understand it now.” 

Did she? Barbara wondered, as she slowly turned 
her eyes away, and looked down at the river, flowing, 
flowing, and at the molded hills. William relapsed 
into silence. He was content with the turn he had 
given her thoughts, and he waited for her to swing 
out into the new region he had indicated. By and by 
she began to talk again, feeling her way. 

“You mean that what we want to do has a sort of 
claim on us?” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


.79 

‘‘Very much of a claim !” He took her up. “That 
which we think we ought to do, that which we per- 
haps decide to do, has to be worked out by reason — 
and that’s half blind at the best. But that which we 
want to do comes straight from God.” 

“But what becomes of duty and self-denial and 
things like that?” 

Barbara was troubled. 

“Some people want to deny themselves,” William 
replied, thinking perhaps, not unpardonably, of his 
own case. But, “No, Barbara,” he went on at once, 
parrying a swift glance of her eyes, “you know you 
don’t. Be honest. You know you want to fly to the 
ends of the earth every time Dick looks at you.” 

Barbara frowned. Then she clasped her hands 
about her knees, threw back her head, and swung out 
in good earnest. 

“If you’re going to talk about ends of the earth,” 
she said, seizing upon William’s last words as a point 
of departure, “it isn’t only Dick that makes me want 
to fly to them.” 

“No, I suppose not, Barbara.” 

It was now William’s turn to be acquiescent. He 
nodded and waited. 

“You notice I don’t run away any more.” She 
made him a funny little face of self-mockery. “That’s 
because I’m ashamed to, not in the least because I 
don’t want to. I often want to exactly as much as 
when I waS seven years old. I wonder if I shall ever 
get over wanting to.” 

William glanced at her. He sighed, 


8o 


THE HOMESTEAD 


‘^Only perhaps you want to go farther now,” he 
suggested in a troubled but resolute voice. 

“Yes!” She nodded in glad satisfaction at his 
understanding. “Quite to the ends of the earth, which 
we have both been talking about. William, do you 
suppose it is just childishness in me?” 

“I don’t know, Barbara.” William spoke serious- 
ly, meeting the seriousness which he read in her flex- 
ible voice. “That’s what I have been wondering. 
That’s what makes all the difference in the world. As 
I said before, you’re pretty young yet ; you might get 
over your restlessness, and learn to like to stay at 
home.” His eyes, behind their careful shield, had a 
depth of wistfulness. “On the other hand,” he went 
on resolutely, “you might grow more and more rest- 
less ; and then I guess you’d have to go away.” 

“Go away? Why, William!” Barbara spoke soft- 
ly under her startled breath. “How could I go 
away ?” She challenged him. 

“Not just now, of course.” He met her eyes re- 
assuringly, though quite unrecantingly. “But per- 
haps by and by. We must wait and see.” 

Barbara’s face sobered. She sat in silence for sev- 
eral minutes. Once, she glanced over her shoulder in 
the direction of the Marshall homestead, and a curi- 
ous look of mingled love and dread came into her 
eyes. 

“I don’t like your by and by,” she said at length. 
“It’s full of sadness. And, anyway, William, what- 
ever happened, there would always be the farm/’ 


THE HOMESTEAD 8i 

The note of finality in her last words seemed quite 
unanswerable. 

"'And there would always be you.*’ William lost 
not a second of time in replying. His tone swept the 
barrier from hers. ‘‘Which is the more important? 

“You see,” he went on, without giving her time to 
struggle with the proposition, “you’ve simply got to 
live your life. It’s not so easy as it sounds to find 
out just what that is, for you’re not built on a simple 
plan. You’ve got two kinds of ancestors in you. I’ve 
been hoping the Marshalls would win out” — he smiled 
at her to cover the sudden yearning in his voice — 
“but Barnaby Rogers has always seemed to me to 
have the upper hand. If he triumphs in the end, Bar- 
bara, you must go away.” 

At the mention of her grandfather, Barbara’s hand 
went to the little compass which she almost always 
wore about her neck, underneath her dress. Her 
eyes shone and deepened. The singing of the hidden 
sea was loud in her ears. Nevertheless, she shook 
her head. 

“There’s the garden,” she murmured. “You know, 
you wouldn’t let me dig that up. And it holds me 
very tight. My roots go deeper than the hollyhocks.” 

“Well” — there was relief in William’s tone, though 
not yet a relinquishment of purpose — “I said I didn’t 
know; we must wait and see. But, while we’re on 
the subject, Barbara, there’s one general remark I 
want to make. Unless a woman likes country life 
very much, in and for itself, I doubt if it’s good for 
her,” 


82 THE HOMESTEAD 

He said this in rather a troubled voice, with his eyes 
in the grass. 

Barbara glanced at him. She knew that he must 
be thinking of his mother, and she was transiently at 
a loss how to answer him. But she presently fol- 
lowed out his suggested idea with spontaneous in- 
terest. 

‘‘My mother was very quiet,’ ^ she mused. “Yet 
every one says she was a lively young girl. Do you 
suppose ” 

“Yes, I do,” answered William. “She had a lot 
of the Rogers in her. And, though she loved your 
father and would never have chosen any other life 
than just the one she led, still I always thought that 
the mountains and the silence weighed on her. She 
grew quieter every year.” 

“Dear me! I wonder.” There were tears in Bar- 
bara’s eyes. “But, after all, she chose it.” 

“Yes, and she was happy,” said William. “Fortu- 
nately, the depression — if that’s what it was — sub- 
dued instead of irritating her. It frets some people 
intolerably, so that they quite lose control of them- 
selves. That’s pretty bad.” 

Again he averted, his eyes, and again Barbara hesi- 
tated. 

“Is it worse with women than with men ?” she asked 
by and by. 

“Yes,” he answered, “naturally. Their work turns 
them in on themselves, while a man’s takes him out 
in the open, makes him forget himself. Anyway, 
women are more thoughtful than men.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


83 


‘Toor women!’’ 

Barbara spoke dreamily. Before her inner vision 
rose forms and faces of her country sisters, worn 
more with loneliness than with toil, heavy with si- 
lence, slow with patience which, seeing no possible 
end to its waiting, had settled down into despair. 
How she understood them! It was not that their 
lives lacked the great primal blessings: love, work, 
health, and comfort and service. It was that they 
were cut off from the general stream of progress, 
chained to monotony, fettered to themselves. People 
need aid from one another in order that they may 
grow — much aid, insistent aid, pushing and prodding 
as well as beckoning. Instinctively, Barbara put out 
her hands and drew a long breath. 

“You see,” said Willia^n, watching her and waiting 
for the right moment to speak, “you mustn’t bind 
yourself to the future until you are quite sure you 
know what it ought to be.” 

He had conquered her easily. Well, he was used 
to conquering Barbara. Perhaps the source of his 
influence lay rather in habit, in the familiar dom- 
inance, of his nature over hers, than in any argument 
which he had adduced. Her own hidden instinct was 
prompt to second his endeavor. Nevertheless, he 
knew that his suggested arguments had been good, 
and he was glad to have had a chance to instil them. 
With some complacency, he left them to work in her 
mind. 

As they descended the hill toward the homestead, he 
was not at all above feeling gratification in the sight 


THE HOMESTEAD 


84 

of Dick, lurking and dodging about the barnyard, 
pretending not to notice their approach. He was even 
malicious enough to delay their return by stopping to 
pick some wild strawberries for Barbara; and he 
helped her over a stone wall with unnecessary care. 
His greeting of the younger man was more cordial 
than it had ever been before. 

just came and carried Barbara off,’’ he said, in 
a tone of sufficient explanation, matter of fact and 
masterful. “She looked rather tired; I thought she 
needed a walk.” 

“But you can have your turn now,” his manner im- 
plied. “Oh, don’t mention it !” 

“Barbara!” 

Dick abandoned all his pretenses of preoccupation 
with a sagging barn door. His handsome young face 
was flushed and pleading — all the more attractive for 
the gleam of impatience in his eyes. He came for- 
ward and confronted his cousin. 

“That’s a very disagreeable man,” he said irre- 
pressibly, though with evident self-control. “The im- 
pudence of him ! But that’s not what I’ve been wait- 
ing all these hours to say. Barbara, won’t you change 
your mind? Won’t you marry me?” 

Barbara drew herself up. 

“Why, he’s not disagreeable at all,” she replied. 
“How dare you say so? Nor impudent! Please stand 
aside. It’s late, and I must get supper.” 

She seemed not even to have heard the end of her 
cousin’s speech. There was nothing for him to do but 
go and wrench the barn door bodily from its hinges. 


VIII 


T hat evening Barbara went to her room as soon 
as the supper dishes were finished and sat by 
her window, watching the clear gold sunset fade be^ 
hind the western hill. She wanted to get away from 
Dick, and she wanted to think about what William 
Sloan had said to her that afternoon. Her mind had 
a whole new realm of possibility to explore. 

Go away: could she go away? She had never 
supposed that she could, and so had never stopped to 
analyze her lurking restlessness. Did she want to go 
away? The amber sky opened immeasurably before 
her, luring, beckoning. There was a cleft in the hill 
just where the sun had gone down, and the wide world 
lay beyond it. Yes, surely, she wanted to go. Swift- 
' er than departing sunlight her fancy flew forth over 
those unknown lands and seas, reveling in them. Of 
course she wanted to go. But when she turned with a 
sigh — because Dick had come out in the yard, and she 
was afraid that he would look up and see her — when 
she turned from the window and saw her familiar 
room pressing around her, quiet and shadowy and full 
of things that were the symbols of permanence, she 
shook her head. Involuntarily she put out her hand 
and caressed a corner of a little dressing-table that 
had belonged to her great-grandmother. 

85 


86 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Before he went to bed her father came to her door; 
and, rising and lighting a candle, she saw that he was, 
for the first time in his life, gravely angry with her. 

‘This is no way to treat a visitor, let alone a cous- 
in,'’ he said. “I’m ashamed of you. What is the 
matter? Why didn’t you come down?” 

“Oh, father!” She hesitated. “I can’t!” she de- 
clared at last “He makes me miserable. If he really 
' — likes me, why doesn’t he go away and leave me in 
peace ?” 

“You’re a spoiled child,” Henry stated roundly. 
“I’ve the greatest mind in the world to wash,my hands 
of you. I shall certainly advise Dick to do so.” 

“Do, father!” breathed Barbara. 

“But you needn’t think that I’m going to forget 
how you’ve acted,” Henry went on, with incomplete 
coherence but with what Barbara found perfect clar- 
ity. “I shan’^t forgive you. I can’t.” 

“Well, father,” Barbara acquiesced despondently; 
and increased his annoyance. 

It was an unhappy situation, and very discourag- 
ing. Neither father nor daughter saw a way out of 
it. The constraint at the breakfast table next morn- 
ing was glacierlike. But Dick saved the day in a 
manner that reflected credit on himself ; and took the 
afternoon train. The manly dignity of his departure 
made every one in the homestead like him better than 
ever before. Which was hard on Henry. He had 
not really needed to like his young kinsman better. He 
stood looking after the retreating buggy (Reuben 
drove his cousin to the train) with the bitter realization 


THE HOMESTEAD 


87 

that one of the fairest, most promising hopes of his 
life had been frustrated. He turned away without so 
much as a glance in Barbara’s direction. 

The end of a family jar is generally m,uch more 
trying than its beginning. People get tangled in their 
own perversity, and do not know how to get out. 
Henry was tied hand and foot. His vexation soon 
turned into a restless unhappiness, but he maintained 
his front of severe displeasure. He treated Barbara 
with a cold, elaborate forbearance which froze his 
own, heart. He did not clearly understand what was 
the matter with him. He had never before been for- 
lorn in just this way. 

But he did not have much time to worry and brood 
after Dick’s departure; for Barbara’s mental outfit 
possessed the one natural weapon adapted to make 
short work of difficult knots : she was frankly gener- 
ous. Relief worked in her irrepressibly. Not even 
her father’s, coldness could spoil her sense of escape 
and. freedom, the joy of her great deliverance. She 
sang as she worked in her kitchen next morning; and 
when the dinner hour found Henry still grave and 
distant, she took a resolute initiative. Stealing up 
behind him in the woodshed, she put both arms about 
his neck and laid her cheek against his. 

“Father.! Father!” she murmured. “I love you 
very much.” 

What can one do with a woman like that? Stand- 
ing on one’s dignity is a difficult process when one has 
two arms tight about one’s neck, and when one can 
look nowhere save into a beautiful, pleading face, in- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


finitely endearing. Henry tried to squirm himself 
free. But squirming is not dignified, either. Then 
he tried to speak sharply : ‘‘Barbara V* But his voice 
broke. Finally he gave up, and encircled his daugh- 
ter with the hoe and the rake which he happened to 
hold in his hands when she surprised him. She clung 
still closer to him, and sang, “Oh ! I am glad ; I am 
glad r' 

Nevertheless, this was not all that there was to the 
reconciliation. Barbara herself would not have 
thought a disagreement honored that could be so 
lightly dismissed. In the evening, with great dignity 
on her own part, she invited a full and free discussion 
of the difficulty. 

She was quiet, and grave by this time. As she and 
her father sat on the front steps, the summer dusk 
deepened about them. Above them, the elm trees 
stirred, sighing softly and making room among their 
shadowy branches for the imminent stars. The old 
house behind them breathed softly, too. Barbara 
thoughtfully leaned her cheek against one of the 
square wooden pillars. With her eager hands folded 
in her lap and her swift eyebrows and mouth con- 
cealed, she looked an integral part of her dwelling, 
the immutable humanity that the immutable roof and 
walls# depended on for their meaning. 

“Father,"' she said at last soberly, “Fm sorry that 
you were disappointed." 

“Well, I'm sorry too, Barbara," he answered her. 

“But it couldn't be helped. I didn't — like him." 


THE HOMESTEAD 89 

She emphasized the lukewarm verb, and made it 
frigid. 

“Don^t you like any one, Barbara?’’ 

There was a half wistful note in her father’s baf- 
fled voice. He peered at his daughter through the 
dusk, trying to read the riddle that her complex young 
womanhood was to his sturdy, masculine middle-age. 

‘‘No, father.” 

Barbara frowned, and the swift motion informed 
her voice. But then she looked up. 

“I like you, daddy,” she said, and this time the word 
glowed. “That’s enough, isn’t it?” 

“Not quite, Barbara.” Henry’s voice acknowl- 
edged the tribute, while at the same time it avoided 
concession. “You see, Reuben really is going to mar- 
ry Jennie; and I really am growing old.” He re- 
minded her of the argument of a few evenings before. 

“I’m going to tell you something, girl,” he went on 
soberly, when Barbara, for a minute, found nothing to 
say. “It’s not very nice. You won’t like it. I never 
liked it myself, and now I hate it. But yesterday I 
had serious thoughts of changing my will and leav- 
ing the homestead to Reuben.” 

“Father!” 

The cry broke forth so involuntarily that it seemed 
an expression of the evening sky. For days after- 
wards it echoed in the bewildered ears of him who 
heard it and in the no less startled ears of her who 
uttered it. It was rapturous, grateful; it had the re- 
lease of a singing arrow; it carried utter conviction. 


90 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Alas ! it smote the father’s heart with a wound which 
only an arrow can give. 

‘‘Barbara!” 

She came to herself when she heard him speak so 
forlornly, and found that she was standing on the 
topmost step. How had she come here? She did 
not remember springing to her feet. She sat down 
at once. For a minute or two the rush of the waters 
of her instinctive mood was so loud in her ears that 
she could not think clearly, could not regain control 
of herself. Not in all her self-conscious life had she 
been so bewildered. But her father’s silence urged 
her. She turned and smiled uncertainly at him. Even 
through the dusk he caught the penitence of her eyes. 

“That was funny, wasn’t it?” she said. “I guess I 
didn’t know what I was doing.” 

“But you’d really be glad if I were to leave the old 
place to Reuben?” 

Henry was not going to shirk the probing of his 
wound, even though the obvious, flaunting arrow 
might seem to render further investigation quite un- 
necessary. Barbara gratified him by pulling out the 
arrow and throwing it away. 

“I want to do just what you want to have me,” she 
said, moving up near him and clasping her hands over 
his knee. “Everything except — marrying, please. Let 
Reuben bring Jennie here to live. That will make 
things all right.” 

“Would you like that?” 

Henry put his hand awkwardly on his daughter’s 
head and stroked her hair the wrong way. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


91 

“No.’’ 

“Nor I, either.” 

They both laughed with the endearing mutual sym- 
pathy of a guilty confession. Then — rare event in 
the annals of their race — Henry bent his head and 
they kissed each other. 

The months which followed were among the hap- 
piest in Barbara’s girlhood. Perhaps they were the 
most contented which she had ever known. The re- 
action from her rebellion filled her with a very fire 
of obedience and devotion. She could not do enough 
to show her love for her father. Her sense of es- 
cape from a lot which would have been hateful to her 
made her look upon all other possible lots as good. 
She had certainly never loved her old home* half so 
well. She busied herself, not only with the faithful 
performance of all her usual tasks, but with the de- 
vising and achieving of new undertakings. She 
coaxed her father for some rolls of wall paper for 
the parlor and bedrooms; she painted the woodwork 
of the kitchen, and made some new curtains for the 
windows. The occupation of hemming the latter 
seemed to bear her more deeply down and back into 
the life of her home than she had ever been before. 
Sitting by one of the kitchen windows, she gave her- 
self over to the spell which a rhythmic needle is so 
mysteriously potent to evoke; and, as her hand went 
back and forth and her eyes dwelt on her task, she felt 
the room and the house and the whole of existence 
widen around her. Presences lurked at her elbow, 
footsteps stirred in the corners. She did not look up. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


92 

Not for anything would she have disturbed the com- 
munion which the whole house was. When she 
emerged from these trancelike sessions her eyes were 
as still as a mountain lake, and even the strong bow 
of her mouth was softened. 

The old house seemed gentler than ever before. 
Perhaps it was the effect of the new papers that made 
the rooms appear less gloomy ; perhaps it was the per- 
vasive stir of her own animation that quickened the 
atmosphere. After all, she reflected, every woman 
impresses herself on the environment to which she 
gives her hearty attention. This was her home now, 
not her grandmother's, nor even her mother's. She 
must see to it that the experienced, versatile old walls 
learned to express her individuality. 

It was significant that, when she rearranged the 
parlor after its re-papering, she paused before the big 
sea shells for a long, troubled moment; then climbed 
up and placed them carefully on the highest shelf of 
the bookcase. 

The garden flourished. She gave it all her spare 
time, and sometimes more than she could conven- 
iently spare. She knew that that was the way to 
please gardens: to be extravagant with them, to let 
them feel that one is somewhat scanting one's other 
duties for them. She remembered the startled, guilty 
haste with which her mother used often to be caught 
preparing a tardy supper after having lost all track 
of time among her flower-beds. But here was the dif- 
ference : Barbara never lost track of time in the gar- 
den, she always knew just what she was neglecting in 


THE HOMESTEAD 


93 

order to wield the trowel. Sometimes, when she stood 
up erect from her labors (there was none of Hes- 
ter’s lingering and relenting in her manner) and re- 
ceived full in her face the glow of the sunset, filling 
the gap in the western hill, she stood transfixed; and 
then, indeed, she lost track of time, lost track even of 
space and herself, was transported beyond the realm 
of the actual. But she always came back soon. With 
a sigh she picked up her gardening tools and went into 
the house to get supper. 

Noting her zeal in the garden and not discerning 
its vicarious nature (how should such subtleties oc- 
cur to him?), her father tried to engage her serious 
attention with the problems of the farm. He suc- 
ceeded. She listened to him carefully, making intelli- 
gent comments, and now and then delighting him 
by suggesting improvements which he had never 
thought of. 

‘‘Good! I told you so, Barbara. You’ve got the 
keenest kind of a farmer in you. Oh! if only ” 

But he checked himself. It would never do to 
hark back to his disappointment in losing his ideal 
son-in-law. 

“Come down in the meadow with me to-morrow, 
and ril show you what I mean about that fertilizer.” 

She tried her best to be interested. She followed 
and looked and pondered; she took her attention in 
both hands and held it face to face with phosphates. 
But when her father left her, to go and look at a 
sagging fence, and then came back to her, he found 
her seated on the ground with her hands clasped 


94 


THE HOMESTEAD 


about her knees and her eyes dreamily dwelling on 
the curves of the farthest hills. 

‘'Have you noticed how the prairie-weed has begun 
to creep in here?’’ he asked her. 

“No. Why, has it? Where?” she said, confusedly 
waking from her re very, and casting her eyes about. 

“You’re sitting beside a bush of it,” he answered 
rather drily. 

He had his misgivings. He was too acute not to 
notice, as the weeks went by, that, although Barbara, 
challenged, was gratifyingly quick to respond, Bar- 
bara, left to herself, had no appearance of giving a 
thought to the farm. But he had rather more than 
his share of the Marshall pertinacity, and he hated 
nothing so much as giving up a careful plan. This 
particular plan was so admirable! He had matured 
it through such an accurate, far-reaching study of his 
two children’s natures. Reuben was stupid, and Bar- 
bara was uncommonly clever: those were plain facts. 
The one, taking the farm, would at his death leave it 
no better than he had found .it. The other, taking it 
(could she only learn to take it gladly), would so deal 
and experiment with it that it would grow beneath her 
hands. 

“Pooh! there’s no danger,” Henry reassured him- 
self. “She’s young; she’ll settle down. Even Hester 
had to have her fling. But I do wish she’d marry.” 


IX 


W ILLIAM shared that wish. He watched Bar- 
bara more closely than ever during the weeks 
of reaction that followed Dick’s departure; and, for 
the first time in his life, he ventured to encourage 
shadowy hopes. 

They were very shadowy. He turned his doubtful 
and reluctant eyes slowly away from them whenever 
they seemed about to take any definite shape. A 
dozen reasons sprang to warn him. But there is such 
a thing as cherishing hopes with an averted face and 
a denying hand ; and William, looking the other way, 
let the dear shadows creep and gather at their will. 

One of his reasons for being afraid to interrogate 
them was his dread of harming the friendship be- 
tween Barbara and himself. He knew her so well! 
With all reverence he thought he divined in her a 
rather transcendent capacity for love; but it was a 
single thing. Only once would that flame be lighted; 
then it would never go out. William was humble. 
How could he suppose that he was the priest appoint- 
ed to kindle that lamp? No, he was the servitor, the 
keeper of the door of the shrine (that was no mean 
function), the patient watcher and student of the 
daily mysteries. He must not endanger his privilege 
by arrogant presumption. If Barbara knew that he 
95 


THE HOMESTEAD 


96 

loved her, and did not love him in turn, she would 
spurn him as she had just so successfully spurned 
Dick Marshall. 

In truth, how rare was his privilege 1 He did not 
know much of the world, but he had read a good 
many books, and he understood that the relation be- 
tween Barbara and himself was unusual. There was 
in it all the mystery of sex (even she, though uncon- 
sciously, must be affected by that), and all the frank- 
ness of long comradeship. They had grown into the 
friendship together, letting it shape itself about them, 
never once standing outside it and manipulating it. 
In the beginning there had been no natural doors of 
reserve in the little girVs heart; and, though there 
were plenty now, he, by his long inhabitation, stood 
inside them all. All? Yet she did not love him? 
No. Perhaps love knows itself by the opening of 
doors. 

He, for his part, had doors enough, all yearning 
on their hinges and all unsolicited. Barbara had 
never tried to know him as he knew her. That was 
natural. She was too little, when their friendship 
began; and he had never had any choice but to keep 
on steadily being twelve years older than she. How 
should a child of twelve care about the private affairs 
of a man twice her age ; or a girl of sixteen concern 
herself with the thoughts of a man of twenty-eight? 
Why, William began to turn gray at twenty-eight! 
Moreover, precisely like everything else, the tree of a 
friendship inclines as the twig is bent; and Barbara, 
having begun by looking to William for sympathy 


THE HOMESTEAD 


97 


and protection, went on doing so. He stood in the 
place of Providence to her. One does not generally 
suspect that Providence, in its turn, needs sympathy. 

Well, anyway, it was all very sweet. He was con- 
tent — or would have been so, if he could have freed 
the tail of his eye from those shadows. Barbara was 
growing up fast. She would soon come to sharing 
his books with him. Already she had responded to 
his hint at the abstract in their hillside conversation 
on the day of Dick’s repulse. She was very intelli- 
gent, capable of thought and feeling beyond most 
girls of her age. Intellectual sympathies form a safe 
ground for intercourse — if one is a little on one’s 
guard. William foresaw a sturdy future of quiet 
comradeship for Barbara and himself. If only — ! 
There again came the phrase that checked everybody’s 
prediction of Barbara’s future. There were two ‘hf 
only’s” in this case; but William, being strong-hand- 
ed, thought himself quite capable of dealing with one 
of them. 

Nevertheless, he drifted into spending ever more 
and more time at the Marshall homestead. He could 
do this without exciting comment or even attention. 
He was as much at home as (ironical phrase!) one 
of the family. Barbara was always glad to see him. 
He liked and hated her matter-of-fact way of wel- 
coming him. Sometimes it made him feel like the 
household dog, sometimes — more complacently — like 
the punctual afternoon sunlight, obtaining admission 
at the western window. All very nice, come right in ; 
but nothing to be excited about. The point was that 


THE HOMESTEAD 


98 

he was freely admitted; he never had any hesitation 
about presenting himself. How did he find time? He 
did not; he made it. He never allowed his farm to 
encroach on the finer concerns of life; and he would 
have lost a whole crop of potatoes rather than fail to 
maintain his touch with Barbara. Of course, as a 
matter of fact, his sessions with her were largely in 
the evening, when her father sometimes joined in the 
talk, sometimes dozed in a corner, sometimes uncon- 
cernedly took himself off to bed. 

But one afternoon he was sitting with her quite 
alone in the kitchen. The early November dusk, 
helped on by a cloudy sky, had given him a reason- 
able excuse for quitting his work. “Fll milk the cows 
after supper,” he had annoyed his methodical mother 
by calling back over his shoulder. 

Barbara was paring apples. The pan of glowing 
fruit in her lap became her admirably, but her strong, 
flexible fingers were making short work of it. Wil- 
liam, watching her, absently counted each apple that 
disappeared as so much loss. 

'"Barbara,” he said, breaking one of the long, 
friendly silences that were common with them, "how 
would you like to do some reading with me this win- 
ter?” 

"Very much,” Barbara answered, looking up 
brightly. "If I can bring myself to make friends 
with your books. I’ve always been jealous of them.” 

"Really, Barbara?” 

William’s face brightened like a boy’s. He had 
not expected this answer, and he joyously let it car- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


99 

ry him around the conversational bend which he had 
been circumspectly approaching. 

‘‘You have been jealous?” 

There was a slight but throbbing stress on the first 
word and the last. 

Alas! however, as so often happens in this disap- 
pointing world, the bend in the river of thought dis- 
closed nothing but the same level and unconcerned 
meadows with which William was already familiar. 
Barbara looked at him and drew her brows together ; 
her eyes were friendly (oh, always friendly!), but 
puzzled and unresponsive. 

“Well, of course not really,” she hastened to ex- 
plain politely. 

“Well” — William's waters subsided into their usual 
uneventful flow; he mocked himself — “they have al- 
ways been jealous of you. But I'm sure they'd be 
glad to make friends. Shall I bring one over to- 
morrow to try?” 

“Yes, do.” 

Barbara finished her apples, and rose to arrange 
them in a baking pan and put them in the oven. Then 
she resumed her seat and took up some sewing. 

“I shall like sharing my books with you,” William 
began again, fixing his eye on another, perhaps more 
promising bend, and .heading for it. “The new inter- 
est will enrich our friendship. It's such a beautiful 
friendship already. Isn't it, Barbara?” 

“Why, yes, of course.” 

Barbara assented, as if to the proposition that the 
fire in the stove gave a pleasant warmth. She turned 


lOO 


THE HOMESTEAD 


an affectionate look on her friend, and then, he could 
have sworn (roundly, too!), bent the very same look 
on the cat that jumped up in her lap. 

“It’s rather unusual, Barbara,” William persisted, 
although he held his breath at the risk he was run- 
ning, “that a man and a woman should know each 
other as well as you and I do.” 

That was indeed a risk: that “man and woman,” 
followed by that “you and I.” Barbara frowned 
again. Doubtless she was unconscious of the swift 
motion, for her eyes remained as steadfast as ever; 
but the shadow crossed the blue depths like the flight 
of an eagle. 

“It seems very natural to me,” she said, with some 
distance in her voice. 

William yielded his tentative purpose on the spot. 
The shadow and the distance were too much for him. 
He certainly had not advanced very far, but he made 
positive haste to retire, pulling himself back as if 
from some threatened disaster. There was the relief 
of escape, as well as the defeat of relinquishment, in 
the brisk tone with which he returned to the imper- 
sonal aspect of their theme. 

“What would you like to read?” he inquired, in- 
tent on winning a cordial and unshadowed response. 

“Oh! I don’t know.” Barbara pondered. “Yes, I 
do. A book of travels. Have you got one on India? 
I like India.” 

There was nothing the matter with the response. 
Clear and untroubled, her eyes dwelt on him; her 
spirit slid a friendly hand into his. But her sugges- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


lOl 


tion disappointed him. He had had Wordsworth’s 
poems in mind, or Emerson’s essays, or Thoreau’s 
“Walden.” He had not a single book of travels in 
his little library. 

“I’ll get one,” he answered bravely, however. “I’ll 
send for one right away. Meantime, how would you 
like to read Sorrow’s ^Lavengro’ ?” 

He must just make up his mind — so he pondered on 
his way home in the twilight — ^to rest content with 
the riches he had, and not to risk them in any wild 
gamble for impossible gains. After all, this state of 
affairs was to be expected. He knew that he had a 
strong spirit; and the great Architect never fashions 
strong spirits without the obvious intention of plac- 
ing burdens on them. He could bear it ; oh, yes ! He 
shrugged his shoulders, accurately adjusting them to 
some unseen load. He could bear anything. 

At the door of his home his mother met him. 

“You’re late,” she remarked. “As usual,” she 
added. “I’ve milked the cows,” she concluded, re- 
turning to the kitchen stove. 

“Mother!” 

William paused in protest. As there had been no 
note of service in her voice, so there was no gratitude 
in his. Vexation on both sides. 

“I told you I was going to do that after supper.” 

“After supper’s no proper time to do up chores. 
Especially when supper’s so late as this.” 

“But what does that matter?” 

“Everything matters that’s not done properly.” 

It was not a pleasant home-coming; but, then, Wil- 


102 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Ham was not accustomed to pleasant home-comings. 
His mother had never before outraged his masculine 
sense of independence by impinging on his domain 
of action; but she had seldom been at a loss for ways 
in which to annoy him. Did she do it on purpose? 
Who could tell? He shrugged his shoulders again, 
but this time not so much in resignation as in irrita- 
tion. 

“For my part, I don’t think it was at all proper for 
you to do such work,” he said severely, taking his 
place at the supper table. 

The two confronted each other in silence, but did 
not look at each other. William’s face was as cloudy 
as his mother’s. For several minutes he let his dis- 
pleasure ride him. But by and by his brow began to 
clear. He was a man, and the genial influence of his 
excellent supper soothed him. 

“I hope you’ve had a pleasant afternoon,” he said, 
looking up with an attempt at conciliation. 

His mother, however, was every whit as much a 
woman as he was a man ; and she was eating no sup- 
per at all. Hence she remained implacable. 

“No, I haven’t; I never have,” she enunciated. 

William said nothing more for a moment; then he 
laid down his knife and fork, and looked at his 
mother. As usual, he was beginning to regret his 
irritation. 

“I’m sorry for that, mother,” he said. “It doesn’t 
seem right. Do you think there is anything I could 
do about it?” 

His manner was anxious, puzzled, polite — some- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


103 


what the manner of a deprecating dog, aware that 
things are not going right, but uncertain how to mend 
them. Even his mother smiled sourly at it. 

‘Well, you might give me some of the time that 
you manage to take from your work for Barbara 
Marshall,” she said, flatly and frankly. 

There were no evasions and suggestions in Martha 
Sloan’s method of dealing with crises. Sincerity was 
her key. 

William flushed. His mood wavered in the bal- 
ance. His mother was as perversely adept in flinging 
him back on vexation, when he tried to make amends 
to her, as if she really preferred to keep him an en- 
emy. But supper or penitence (one or the other or 
both) wrought in him graciously to-night, and he 
finally answered her with a true ring of conciliation. 

“All right. That’s a happy suggestion. You’re 
always so busy about the house that it never occurred 
to me that you’d like to have me bothering around. 
I can make time for a chat whenever you’d like to 
have me.” 

Whenever she’d like to have him 1 Martha, in turn, 
found her son adept in flinging her back on disappoint- 
ment. She answered him bitterly. 

“Thank you. Next time I have a spare half hour. 
I’ll ring the bell.” 

“Do!” 

William was innocent of offense. He thought the 
matter happily arranged. 

“For the land’s sake, William !” His mother could 
not stand her vexation another minute; it burst out 


104 


THE HOMESTEAD 


suddenly. “What business have you with spare half- 
hours? Let alone hours.” She glanced at the clock. 
“This is a big farm. Your father was always at work 
on it from morning to night. I never saw him, except 
at meal times. I didn’t expect to.” She guarded her- 
self against any possible charge of inconsistency. “I 
like to have a man do his work well ; that’s what he’s 
made for. But you, with your books and your Bar- 
bara — do you know, William, that the fence is down 
in the south wood lot, and that the rats have gotten 
into the cornhouse, and that 

She stopped. She realized that she had better not 
let her son know how closely she had lately been fol- 
lowing up his obligations. She was not quite in 
time. 

“Oh, mother!” The cloud returned to his fore- 
head. “Of course I know it. Did you suppose I 
wasn’t going to look after those things? I’ve ordered 
the wire for the fence, and a new kind of trap for 
the rats. I wish ” 

“You’d mind your own business,” was what he 
wanted to say; but he left his sentence in the air, with 
a fine inter jectory stress on the last word; and, light- 
ing his lantern, went out to the barn, his set lips and 
shoulders conveying the comment that, although 
women may elect to do a man’s work for him, they 
always have to be followed up, lest they have not done 
it well. 

Left alone in the kitchen, his mother went about 
her legitimate task of washing dishes. Her lips were 
as firmly set as her son’s, but her eyes were more 


THE HOMESTEAD 


105 


fretful than displeased — restless, dissatisfied. Poor 
woman ! To be left alone in the kitchen was her habit- 
ual lot — her past, her present, her future, her eternity. 
She hardly knew that she minded it. During her 
husband’s lifetime she had, perhaps, not minded it 
much. Devotion to housework and farmwork had 
always been her accepted, unquestioned standard for 
human life; and, so long as her men folks toiled in 
their sphere, she was content to toil in hers. But she 
had never had many friends, and she had had only 
one child. He was a serious baby, soon maturing into 
a sturdy boy whom his father took with him out into 
the fields. Nobody had ever really shared Martha’s 
kitchen with her. She was at last beginning to real- 
ize this. The very obvious frequentation of Barbara 
Marshall’s kitchen brought the emptiness home to her. 

Very well; she would endure it. She was not given 
to brooding; if she had ever gone far enough in the 
habit to think about it at all, she would have consid- 
ered it a weak waste of time. Her method of dealing 
with life was as flat and frank as her method of deal- 
ing with people. She made no concessions; that was 
not the way. She set herself firmly against limita- 
tions, ignoring and defying them. No wonder she 
maddened them into hemming her ever more closely 
about. 

She knew perfectly well what would happen this 
evening, but she refused to pay the event the tribute 
of deploring it. William would scrutinize every 
trace of her ministrations in the barn; some of her 
most painstaking efforts he would readjust. Then, 


io6 


THE HOMESTEAD 


without returning to the house, he would again be- 
take himself to the Marshall farm. Resolutely she 
got out her sewing and sat down by the lamp. 

But, for once, the event failed to respond to her 
challenge. (If events are human — as why not? — it 
must have hated to disappoint her.) To her sur- 
prise, in five minutes, she heard William’s step at the 
door. 

“You didn’t ring,” he said, trying to give the oc- 
casion a jocular turn — he had had another attack of 
penitence in the barn — “but this looks like a spare 
half hour. Supposing we talk a while.” 

It was quite too bad! He was really doing his 
best; his intentions were honest and filial. At another 
time, under other circumstances, his mother might 
have greeted him with gratification. But now, of 
course, on the very heels (though perhaps it seemed 
rather on the impelling toe) of her complaint and his 
blundering response, his literal, good-natured obe- 
dience irritated her. 

“No, I didn’t ring,” she remarked pointedly, with- 
out looking up. 

William hesitated. His impulse was to shrug his 
shoulders and go away. But he had been thinking a 
good deal about his mother lately; and her recent re- 
mark had not given him his first occasion to take him- 
self to task for leaving her so much alone. After a 
moment, he blew out his lantern and hung it on its 
nail. 

“You don’t mind, do you?” he said, sitting down 
In a big rocking-chair. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


107 


The event certainly must have been human, it took 
such a perverse delight in mocking these two people. 
^‘Talk a while?’' But what was there to talk about? 
■Not their neighbors, the Marshalls; not that unfor- 
tunate fence; not the narrow escape of the horse, 
Billy, whom Martha had tied by too long a rope and 
whom William had just found quietly engaged in 
hanging himself. William was not a great talker at 
best. He ransacked his brain rather desperately in 
the unrelenting face of the situation. His mother, 
plainly, was not disposed to help him out. Finally his 
gaze, roving the room in search of matter for com- 
ment — any banality would be better than this heavy 
silence — fell on a shelf of books in the corner, and at 
once a look of relief came into his eyes. Books! Of 
course! When had they ever failed to help a trou- 
bled heart that turned to them? 

‘Tet’s read aloud, mother," he said. ‘Dr, rather, 
of course. I’ll read, and you can go on sewing. Have 
you re-read David Copperfield lately?" 

Had she re-read ! What an ignorance of her tastes 
and habits the question implied! Martha Sloan had 
never been accustomed to find time for reading. 

“No," she replied succinctly and drily. 

William fetched the book. 

But he had not read ten minutes before he knew 
that the experiment was a failure. There was not 
the slightest response on tlie part of his listener. Of 
course he had not expected smiles or comments from 
her ; but he had expected that she would listen. Oth- 
erwise, really, what was the use of reading at all? 


io8 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Her deportment was negatively inoffensive enough, 
she neither yawned nor fidgeted; but William had an 
increasing, uneasy conviction that she was not hear- 
ing a word. Presently he broke off .and looked up. 

‘That was a vivid scene, wasn’t it?” he inquired 
tentatively. 

Martha’s frankness did not desert her. 

“I really haven’t the least idea,” she enunciated. 

“I thought so.” William laid the book on the edge 
of the table, and rose and stood with his hands in his 
pockets, looking down at his mother. “You see, after 
all, you don’t really want me to come and sit with 
you.” 

Martha made no reply, nor did she look up from 
her steady sewing. 

“When I come for a chat, you have nothing to say; 
and, when I read aloud, you don’t listen.” 

There was a frown between William’s eyes, half 
puzzled, half indignant. He was beginning to find 
himself maddeningly at a loss in the face of this rigid 
unresponse. 

“What are we going to do about it? Do say some- 
thing, mother !” 

Martha finished one pair of socks, rolling them 
neatly together; and put out her hand for another 
pair. 

“I guess there’s nothing to say,” she articulated. 

That was all. It was the ultimate truth. Fortu- 
nately William had the present grace to abide by it 
as fully as he recognized and admitted it. He opened 
his lips, then closed them firmly and turned away. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


109 


Out of the tail of her eye his mother saw him select 
another book from the shelf; then she heard him go 
up to his room and light his lamp. 

Once more left alone, she did not drop her work 
and give herself over to her thoughts, as most women 
would have done. She went right on sewing, and her 
attitude and expression changed not one particle. 
Why should she yield to her own mood, when she 
yielded to nothing else in her environment ? Thoughts 
were not her business in life; thoughts are idle and 
harmful and bitter. When she had quite finished her 
mending, she put her work-basket away, wound the 
clock, turned out the cat, and went to bed. In fifteen 
minutes thereafter she was sound asleep. 

But one wonders whether such stoicism is as sen- 
sible as it seems. It locks the door in the face of any 
improvement. If Martha, tossing on a sleepless pil- 
low, had said, “This is unendurable,’’ might she not 
have arisen next day, intent on some remedy? As it 
was, the November moonlight illumined no face on 
any country pillow that was more hopelessly lacking 
in peace. 


X 


R euben was married in the spring. There was 
little romance about his alliance, but there was 
much common-sense. His bride was the only child 
of a prosperous farmer who was now well along in 
years. By working in with the old man, the young 
one would be taking over interests of which he would 
eventually become the master. How much better 
than filling a temporary underlingfs place on a farm 
which belonged to a wayward elder sister! Jenny was 
older than Reuben, sensible, competent, steady; a 
more harmonious match could hardly be. 

“They won’t quarrel,” said Henry to Barbara, on 
the eve of the wedding, noticing how the staid couple, 
who had been obeying convention by sitting in the 
hammock, simultaneously got to their feet on the 
stroke of nine and started away down the road, she 
in the hard trodden path on one side, he on the other. 
“They understand each other like the cogs of the same 
machine. But, oh, my girl! Fm glad they’re not 
going to have my farm.” 

“Sure, daddy?” 

Barbara stood with her cheek against her father’s 
shoulder. Her eyes followed his down the road, 
watching the retreat of the betrothed. Usually, she 
avoided the observation of lovers; but this demure 

no 


THE HOMESTEAD 


111 


couple never offended or troubled her maiden heart. 
She smiled and curled her lip — ^why, she could not 
have said. 

‘‘Sure, daughter 

Henry understood that there was more idleness 
than intention in Barbara’s question. The last long 
winter had matured and steadied her wonderfully; 
and he and she had shared each other’s thoughts more 
fully than ever before. As William had read essays 
and biography with her, so her father had plied her 
with treatises on agriculture, chickens, and the dairy. 
She had been very responsive, reading dutifully if 
not eagerly, and making intelligent comments which 
showed that she understood. Once or twice he had 
had the delight of leading her on in a far discussion, 
ranging beyond the span of her youth, of his lifetime, 
concerning the future disposition of the farm land. 
He had made her eyes shine with a project for plant- 
ing one whole hillside, a hundred acres or more, with 
young pine trees. 

“What a wonderful forest!” she had murmured. 

“Yes, there’s no more valuable timber,” he had 
replied. 

“ ‘The mast of some high ammiral,’ ” she had quot- 
ed dreamily. 

He was really easy about her at last. She had 
grown up, she had put away childish things, she had 
come into her own. It was all the better that she 
should have had her innocent fling with rebellion; 
flings belonged to her nature. When she came to 
having her fling with the meadows, with the corn and 


112 


THE HOMESTEAD 


potatoes, with the pasture lands, the Marshall farm 
would prosper as never before. 

‘'Yes, I believe really as never before,’’ Henry con- 
fided to William. "Barbara’s got go and grit. And a 
farm likes that.” 

When, therefore, on the eve of Reuben’s mar- 
riage, she reverted to the old question of the inheri- 
tance, her father did not take her at all seriously. 

"Sure? I should think so!” he answered her. 
"You’re the farmer for this place. I’m going to drop 
into the background pretty soon, and let you take the 
lead. Then you’ll either have to get married, or en- 
gage a hired girl,” he ventured to assure her jocu- 
larly. 

Barbara frowned. A shadow came over her face, 
and she turned away. 

But Henry did not keep his word. How could he, 
loving his work as he did, accustomed through so 
many years, to hold the master’s hand? When Reu- 
ben was gone, he made a pretense — which yet was 
honest enough, and so was no real pretense — of con- 
sulting Barbara, even of deferring to her judgment. 
But it was not noticeable that he took her advice 
when his opinion differed from hers, or that he abated 
any of his activity. Barbara understood him. She 
was not guiltless of humoring him, of indulging in a 
certain pretense of her own. He liked to think that 
she was sharing the management of the farm with him. 
Very well, she would let him think it; but she would 
not be so foolish as to disturb either him or herself by 
playing more than a nominal part. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


113 

As the spring came on, she had had a recurrence 
of her old restlessness (never, during the most pacific 
seasons, more than in abeyance), and William had 
noticed that she took a great many walks, that she 
found innumerable errands to do in the village and 
in the neighboring town. Henry had noticed this too; 
but he thought that the errands were genuine, and he 
approved of them. It was a housewifely prudence 
that led to the plan for re-stocking the kitchen pantry 
and the linen-closet. There was money enough to 
pay for the things; the farm was doing well. As for 
the long walks over the hills, might not an interest 
in the farm have something to do with them? It was 
no uncommon occurrence for the father to look up 
from his plowing or planting, and find his daughter 
standing beside him, smiling at him. Then with what 
pleasure he made haste to greet her, and explain to 
her what he was doing, and ask her if she approved, 
and consult her about the best disposition of the next 
field ! Probably he never noticed that her eyes, when 
they were not intent on his face, spent much more 
time ranging the distant hills than studying the fields. 
Or, if he did, he thought little about it, just as he 
thought little of the fact that the girl seldom arrived 
on these visits from the direction of the homestead, 
but from the high slope of West Mountain, or from 
the edge of the woods. 

When the flower garden began to quicken, Barbara's 
wanderings slackened. She went out each morning 
to greet the pushing tips of larkspur, hollyhocks and 
iris, as she would have gone to receive a message 


114 


THE HOMESTEAD 


from her mother; and, as soon as she could dispose 
of her housework — sometimes before she even tried 
to — she devoted herself to labor in the flower beds. 
This occupation, together with the spring houseclean- 
ing which the example of all her neighbors forced 
upon her, tided her over the spring into the sober 
summer. After Reuben’s departure she settled down 
into a life of quiet companionship with her father. 

He and she were boon comrades. Each loved the 
other above all things and all people else. They liked 
being alone together in the big, shadowy, brooding 
house. ‘‘Oh, daddy! aren’t you glad Reuben didn’t 
bring Jenny here?” she murmured often, when they 
sat on the front steps, or lighted the lamp in the 
kitchen and drew the curtain against the cold, rainy 
dusk. He patted her hand in silence. He was deeply 
content. 

He even stopped hinting at her marriage. That 
was a source of relief and of secret amusement to 
her. Under the contagious influence of Reuben’s and 
Jenny’s marriage she had had an outspoken suitor or 
two with whom to reckon. They were quite ‘‘desir- 
able” — good, sturdy, capable young men. It would 
have seemed that her father must embrace their cause. 
But, no ; he was uneasy when they called ; he was not 
at all considerate of them and interrupted their ses- 
sions. 

“Daddy, dear,” Barbara could not resist saying one 
evening, as a very disgruntled young man shot down 
the front steps and out through the gate, “I bless 
you for coming in just then; but you surprise me. 


THE HOMESTEAD 115 

I thought you wanted me — well, to supply you with 
an assistant.” 

‘‘Oh, little daughter!” His arm circled her. “Fm 
an inconsistent, selfish old man. I like having you 
all to myself. I don’t want any rivals.” 

William came and went as he chose. They were 
always glad to see him, and talked as unreservedly in 
his presence as when he was not there. Sometimes he 
read aloud. Henry then went to sleep on the lounge 
in the comer; but Barbara listened, with steady eyes 
bent on her sewing, and parted, eager lips. She was 
a capital listener. She made very few comments, but 
he felt the flow of her attention like a river on which 
his voice was securely launched. Frequently at the 
end of some passage of particular beauty their eyes 
met and dwelt on each other in silent congratulation. 

‘William,” she said once, following him to the 
door, as, finishing Carlyle’s essay on Dante and glanc- 
ing at the uplifted hands of the clock, he took his 
leave, “a book like that is something like a mountain- 
top, isn’t it? I don’t need to take so many walks 
when you read to me.” 

“Oh, good, Barbara!” William’s voice had a note 
of triumph. “That’s what I hoped would happen. 
After all, it’s your mind that wants to travel.” 

“And yet, I don’t know” — Barbara retracted her 
concession — “you haven’t read me anything that has 
the sea in it. I guess that has to be a first-hand ex- 
perience.” 

She shook her head, and William went away, ob-* 
scurely disappointed. 


ii6 THE HOMESTEAD 

The old house was very benignant that summer. 
Barbara kept the doors and windows open, and in- 
vited the wind and the sunlight and the fragrance of 
the happy, healthy out-of-doors to range through the 
rooms. She brought flowers and grasses in from the 
fields, and set them on the grave old tables and shelves. 
Her conscious deliberate intention was to coax her 
dwelling out of the past tense into the present, to 
break up its heavy old mood and induce a lighter 
hearted toleration of the things of the passing hour. 

All went very well with her. If only the subsiding 
waters had not been stirred by a new series of events! 
If only I 


XI 


T owards the end of the summer, in the town 
hall, a traveling lecturer gave a talk on Italy. 
Public entertainments of any kind were rare in the 
valley; and though most of the farmer folk would 
probably have preferred to have the social opportu- 
nity take the shape of an acrobatic performance or a 
musical comedy, there was nobody who dreamed of 
missing the chance for diversion. 

As soon as William saw the hand-bills posted in 
the village store, he hastened to give Barbara the 
pleasure of the anticipation. She sprang out of her 
chair (such impulsive motions had been infrequent 
with her of late), and her eyes changed from lakes 
into stars. 

‘‘Italy!’’ she cried. 

For a moment William’s heart misgave him. He 
had wanted to please Barbara, but it seemed to him 
that he had succeeded almost too well. Then he 
braced himself. 

“Let’s read up on the subject beforehand,” he said. 
“I think there are a few books on Italy in the Public 
Library.” 

William and Henry and Barbara went to the lec- 
ture together. Henry was prepared to be bored, but 
he thought that he ought to lend the occasion the 
117 


ii8 


THE HOMESTEAD 


dignity of his presence. William was troubled. He 
had tried to persuade his mother to come with them, 
and had been painfully baffled. But Barbara had 
contentment enough for three. She sat on the back 
seat of the open carriage and looked up at the stars, 
wondering if they would seem different to her when 
she came back from hearing about that other land 
which lay beneath their ken. 

This it means to live in the country; that every 
pleasure which comes one's way is magnified to the 
utmost, so that one’s capacity is alert, ready for its 
utmost too; that a meager entertainment is quite 
touchingly turned into surpassing bounty. Unless, 
indeed, one’s faculties have been dulled by long dis- 
use; and then precisely the opposite result obtains. 
William thought of these two conditions, watching 
Barbara and remembering his mother; and sighed, as 
he wondered if the former’s beautiful eagerness would 
ever suffer the eclipse which had overtaken the lat- 
ter. Barbara unresponsive and warped! Heaven 
forbid ! 

The three were early, and found good seats; but 
the hall filled rapidly after their arrival. Fathers of 
families, sobered by their Sunday collars, ushered in 
their wives and children, all likewise demure. Young 
men escorted their favored maidens, shy and self- 
conscious ; with exaggerated carelessness they dropped 
into their seats. A number of small boys broke loose 
from their respective parents and herded together, 
giggling, on the back seat. Otherwise the silence was 
portentous. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


119 


The pale young lecturer, waiting at the foot of the 
platform, observed his audience with idly attentive 
eyes. It was quite familiar to him. He had ad- 
dressed its precise counterpart in a score of villages 
during the spring and summer. It seemed to him 
that he could recognize the very same faces from place 
to place, certainly the same manners. He knew ex- 
actly what would happen now, in a few minutes, when 
he began to talk. The waiting figures would gather 
themselves into a rigid immobility, the stolid eyes 
would fix on his face a stare which not all his ex- 
perience could save him from finding disconcerting, 
but which by and by he would be still more discon- 
certed to miss. In fifteen minutes a third of his hear- 
ers would have become blind and deaf to him, either 
frankly slumbering, or making such concentrated ef- 
forts to keep awake that they had no attention to 
spare. 

Was it his fault? He always wondered, and then 
admitted that it would seem to be. ^ But he knew that 
he did his best. He could not consent to cheapen and 
stunt his interpretation of Rome by an exclusive at- 
tention to gladiatorial combats, or Neroic horrors, or 
other melodramatic aspects of the great city's history. 
His lecturing was a high calling to him ; he strove to 
make it as fine an art as possible. 

He was a rather striking young man to look at: 
tall and very slender, with a tumultuous shock of 
yellow hair, surmounting a dreamy forehead, and un- 
expected dark eyes, smoldering underneath. His 
face was clean-shaven; the lips were full and very 


120 


THE HOMESTEAD 


gentle. It was always the women of his audiences 
that went to sleep last. 

Barbara was no slower than her sister villagers to 
find him an interesting object of contemplation. She 
bent an eager gaze on him. This was partly because 
she expected such a boon of him ; all the week she had 
hoped that he would give it, and now she knew he 
would. But probably he would not have seemed quite 
so attractive to her if he had been fat and sixty. 

He did not return her glance for some time, be- 
cause he did not notice her. He was absorbed in a 
mental struggle with the first paragraph of his lec- 
ture, trying to readjust it and make it more popular. 
His first glance over his audience had confirmed him 
in his conviction that this town was likely to care 
even less than most places about aqueducts and haunt- 
ed plains and catacombs. But when the hour came 
for beginning, and his glass of water was solemnly 
placed on the table beside him, he gathered himself 
together and gave that quick, involuntary look in 
search of the ‘'creative listener’' which is habitual with 
all solicitors of the public. 

Lo, he found her ! He had never found her before, 
and he had certainly not expected to find her here. 
He had not even very clearly expected to find her 
anywhere. But he recognized her the minute he saw 
her; and his eyes widened and woke to welcome her. 
What an expression! Not rigid and fixed, not pain- 
fully detaining itself, not wavering into polite uncon- 
cern, not anything that he was used to ; but eager, ex- 
pectant, waiting only a chance to respond. Well! 


THE HOMESTEAD 


121 


He stepped to the edge of the platform, to get as near 
her as possible; and began to talk like a fountain 
bursting out of the rock. He abandoned his vapid 
reconstruction of his first paragraph as if he had never 
thought of it; and rendered his original version with 
a glow which made it a new thing. 

It is hard to say to which of them the occasion was 
greater or more keenly exciting. To Barbara it was 
a longed-for, deferred, anticipated revelation of joy 
for which her spirit had thirsted. She drank breath- 
lessly, forgetting herself through the very fulness of 
her self-realization. Oh! all the wide world beyond 
the valley — here it was, beautiful, fairer than she had 
supposed it could be. Here were the storied cities, 
instinct with the significance of the past, quick with 
the life of to-day. Here were the wonderful build- 
ings, the dreamy old pictures, the marbles, the foun- 
tains, the magic ilex groves. Here were the rivers, 
the sweeping plains. And here, beyond all delight, 
was the sea, clasping the earth with its blue rhythmic 
spell of eternity. Tears came into her eyes. She 
was there, and yet she was not there. Her senses 
yearned on the track of her spirit and clamored to 
come up with it. 

Daniel Pritchard, for his part, was blessed with his 
own especial kind of consummation. His lectures 
were no idle pastime with him, nor were they pri- 
marily a means of gaining a livelihood. He had been 
brought up in the country, and had early broken away 
from it, finding its lack of human stimulus and re- 
sponse intolerable. He had been fortunate in the way 


122 


THE HOMESTEAD 


in which freedom had come to him — through a nat- 
ural working of circumstance, not through his own 
rebellion. So that he had gone forth joyously, with 
no compunctions. But memory had never let him 
alone. He could not forget how cramped and stifled 
he had once felt, nor ignore the fact that his old coun- 
try companions were still in bondage. The death of 
the uncle who had freed him by claiming him as a 
traveling companion had left him with a small com- 
petence, sufficient to keep him forever roaming the 
wonderlands of the earth, if he so desired. But he 
could not be idle; he must have some sort of pro- 
fession. Moreover, he must try to be of use in the 
world. Thinking about these things, as he lay in a 
hollow of the Roman Campagna one drowsy autumn 
day, it occurred to him that he might try the experi- 
ment of carrying Italy home to Vermont. At once 
he sat up with a sense of having found his career. 
Of course! That would justify his roaming, that 
would repay his grateful debt to his uncle, and the 
still more insistent debt which every one incurs who 
escapes a snare. He returned to his rooms, and with- 
out delay set himself to fashion a series of lectures; 
then he took an early spring steamer home, and began 
his experiment. 

It had not been altogether successful. His glow 
of enthusiasm had not kindled a corresponding glow 
in the hearts — or certainly not in the faces — of his 
listeners. But perhaps he had expected too much. 
He had judged them all by the standard of his own 
old eagerness. What it would have meant to him. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


123 


six years ago, to have somebody stand up and give 
him an eye witness’s description of Italy! He must 
reconstruct his ideas. Though he was disappointed, 
he was by no means discouraged. Whether these 
people knew it or not, they were stultified by their 
isolation; and whether or not they wanted to hear 
about Rome, it must be good for them to do so. A 
third of his audience slept, but with the other two- 
thirds he made every effort to share the treasures of 
his experience. 

Barbara! Of course he did not know her name, 
nor anything about her. She was at first to him not 
even an individual woman, but only the listener whom 
he had imagined, whose eyes had been before him 
when he was writing his lectures, whose tangible real- 
ity he had lately been coming to doubt. It was true, 
then, there was such a person; he had not deluded 
himself. He felt a little (in all reverence) as the 
Magi may have felt, when they stood at last under 
the elusive star and all their gifts came tumbling out 
of their hands. The need of giving is more poignant 
than that of receiving; yes, doubtless, his was the 
greater joy that night. 

But what a pity that he could not give two or three 
lectures at a time! What a pity (he vexed himself) 
that he had chosen this particular lecture to-night! 
He had written the one on the Sistine Chapel more 
peculiarly for her, and supremely that on the Roman 
gardens. As he talked he made discursive efforts to 
snatch at the skirts of all his discourses, with the re- 
sult that he now and then tripped himself up rather 


THE HOMESTEAD 


124 

hopelessly. But he did not mind that. Oh ! he must 
not fail to tell her how the Colosseum looked in the 
moonlight. When he had all but finished, he came 
running back to tell her about the rainbow in Saint 
Peter’s fountain. 

She took it all, everything, with her eyes intent on 
his, and her breath coming softly in her spellbound 
body. She was not aware of him as a man any more 
than he was aware of her as a woman. She was his 
listener, and he was her angel of revelation, her 
wings, bearing her to the country which she so dearly 
desired. Each was to the other, in fact, a sort of 
second self. She was the self he had saved from the 
mountains six years ago. He was the self she as- 
pired to be ; how she envied him ! 

When he stepped from the platform there was a 
universal burst of applause which astonished him. 
He had almost forgotten that he had any audience 
besides Barbara; and he had not expected applause 
from her, she was too far gone in dream. He glanced 
around quickly, stepped back and bowed, a flash of 
gratified pleasure lighting his face. See all these peo- 
ple! There was not one who betrayed the unmistak- 
able, all top familiar signs of recent slumber. They 
were looking at him with intelligent eyes, and clap- 
ping lustily. What did it mean? Had he at last 
learned how to accomplish his purpose and communi- 
cate his enthusiasm? He was doubly grateful to 
Barbara, then. It was she who, by her response, had 
called forth his best endeavor, who had set him free 


THE HOMESTEAD 


125 

of his enterprise. He enveloped her still watchful 
face with a glance of gratitude. 

Country audiences are shy about expressing their 
recognition of benefits. Daniel understood this. He 
remembered his own youthful, bolting exits from the 
church door on Sunday morning before he should find 
himself face to face with the minister and have to 
say something about the sermon. Therefore, to-night 
he stepped back from the platform, awaiting and 
avoiding the usual stampede for the door. But he 
did hope that Barbara would linger. Would she? 
Would she not? He kept his eye anxiously on her 
amidst the heads of the other people. 

She hesitated. Perhaps she felt his mute appeal. 
But, after all, what could she say to thank him ? What 
could any one say to express such gratitude as hers? 
She was not shy nor embarrassed; she was simply 
pervaded with silence. 

Her father and William settled the question of her 
immediate conduct for her. They went up to speak 
to the lecturer, and naturally drew her along with 
them. 

“WeTe greatly obliged to you,” Henry said, speak- 
ing as if he represented the town. ‘‘You certainly 
gave us a good talk. ’ Perhaps we’ll see you here again 
some time.” 

“Perhaps you’ll stay now,” William put in. He 
had caught a flash in Daniel’s eye which seemed to 
leap somewhat beyond the legitimate goal of response. 

“I don’t quite know,” the young man murmured. 
“My plans are unsettled.” 


126 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Then he turned to Barbara. She gave her hand 
confidently into his, and let her eyes dwell on his as 
they had dwelt all the evening. But neither he nor 
she found anything to say. 

‘"A nice young fellow!” commented William, as 
they drove home through the starlight. 

“Nice enough,” answered Henry, somewhat grudg- 
ingly. “A little too pretty for me. I don’t like such 
awfully good-looking chaps. Say, Will, I want to 
ask you about that new fertilizer. Do you find ” 

And the two men were soon deep in agricultural 
talk. 

Barbara heard and said nothing. She leaned back 
in her corner of the carriage and gave herself up to 
the spell of the stars, just as she had given herself 
two hours before. She found that she had been right 
in her expectation : they did look different to her now, 
entirely different. Vega flashed with a light which it 
borrowed from the Vestal Virgins; the curves of the 
constellations followed the line of the dome of Saint 
Peter’s. Oh, that far city! It held the sum of all 
things for which she thirsted, and she longed after it 
with a concentrated desire. Rome! Rome! Yes, the 
sea was there too, just at the end of the winding 
river, just over beyond those vast, lonely plains, those 
grandly sweeping regions of silence and solitude. The 
sea and the plains and the distant hills; and, in the 
midst of them, that blue dome, those crowding pal- 
aces. She made haste to climb the slope of the near- 
est hill, and step to the nearest star. Thence she 
leaned eagerly. She had no consciousness of the 


THE HOMESTEAD 


127 


familiar environment through which she passed. Her 
spirit was free of the universe, and she exulted in it. 

It was with a disconcerting surprise that, at the 
stopping of the carriage, she came to herself and 
looked up and saw her home looming before her. The 
dizzying rush of the leagues of blue air, through 
which her soul sped, returning, dazed and half blind- 
ed her. Involuntarily she put out her hand and 
clasped William’s arm, trying to steady herself. He 
turned and looked at her. Did he understand? For 
the moment it did not greatly matter whether he did 
or not; for, in spite of her appeal, she was not think- 
ing of him. She was gazing up at the homestead, 
confronting it face to face, and her attention was 
wholly given to it. Claimed by it, rather. It had an 
air of putting forth a command, of asserting a neg- 
lected but all the more inexorable right. It stood 
very dark underneath its big trees. There was no 
moon to-night, and the starlight seemed only to make 
apparent the gloom of the old walls. Through one 
of the windows a ruddy gleam from the kitchen stove 
gave the effect of a watchful eye. “Oh!” said Bar- 
bara under her breath. Before she went into the 
house, she stooped and picked a withered leaf from 
her mother’s garden. 


XII 


T he next morning she was not surprised to see 
Daniel Pritchard come slowly up the road. She 
had not expected him, she had not even thought much 
about him ; but as soon as she saw him she knew that 
his coming was a matter of course. 

She had risen early, abandoning a bed that was a 
restless haunt of dreams. If one must be beset with 
fountains and domes and old ruins it is better to be 
on one’s feet, mistress of one’s faculties. Once up 
and dressed, she had been relieved to find that her 
household duties counteracted her visions somewhat, 
claiming her attention and steadying her. With swift 
energy she got the breakfast and made the bread. But 
when the dishes were washed and the loaves out of 
the oven, she wandered out into the garden. The 
house irked her; it seemed to dog her footsteps and 
watch her. 

There was no work to be done in the garden; the 
plants were drowsing toward their winter sleep. Bar- 
bara picked a dry leaf here and there, fingered a be- 
lated blossom, lifted a drooping stalk. Then she went 
and sat down in a comer of the stone wall, clasping 
her hands about her knees and gazing dreamily off at 
the hazy blue hills. The autumn sunlight enveloped 
her, stealing through her thoughts and senses with a 
128 


THE HOMESTEAD 


129 


healing caress. She had her back to the house, and 
had to turn her head to see Daniel ; but she turned it 
spontaneously at the first sound of his approach. 

“May I sit down?’’ 

He stopped before her and stood looking down at 
her as if he had often before thus stopped and looked. 
His eyes in the morning sunlight gleamed and 
sparkled darkly. 

“Yes, indeed.” 

She smiled up at him, and indicated a smooth flat 
stone, fit for a seat. Her informal friendliness 
equaled his. One would have thought that the two 
were lifelong comrades, meeting to resume a conver- 
sation unfinished the evening before. 

“I’m glad to see you,” she said simply. “And 
yet,” she added at once, “I don’t know but I’m a 
little sorry too. I’m rather tired and quiet this morn- 
ing, and don’t feel up to trying to thank you.” 

“Don’t!” He dropped down on his stone, and 
deposited his wide, picturesque, foreign-looking hat 
on the grass beside him. “I don’t want thanks. You 
ought to know that.” 

His tone implied a consummate intelligence on her 
part. 

“Besides, it’s the other way,” he went on presently. 
“It’s I who thank you.” 

No woman taxed with intuition likes to run any 
risk of refuting the charge. Barbara could not pos- 
sibly know what her companion meant by his last 
remark; but he seemed to think that she ought to 
know, therefore she held her peace. He held his also. 


130 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Perhaps they suddenly realized that their abrupt 
plunge into intercourse was warranted by no acquaint- 
ance at all ; and, as they had drawn together, so now, 
like two children, they stepped apart and mutely 
studied each other. At any rate, they said nothing 
for several minutes ; and their two pairs of eyes dwelt 
on each other, attentive and curious. 

‘‘Fm going to tell you about it.” 

He came to the end of his hesitation as suddenly as 
he had fallen upon it, and reverted to his former man- 
ner. This time his tone implied that he found it ab- 
surd to try to go back of an initial spontaneity. He 
leaned against the stone wall and clasped his hands 
about one knee in an attitude that was oddly like Bar- 
bara’s own. For all their structural differences, his 
face and hers were, for the next half hour, spiritual 
mirrors, the one to the other. 

What he told her was, of course, the most inter- 
esting story which she had ever heard. Perhaps there 
is nothing which so enthralls any of us as a repeti- 
tion of our own experience. That which we have al- 
ready learned is the thing above all others which we 
delight in learning yet more profoundly; it is the 
perpetual fountain of wisdom to us. But we cannot 
learn very well alone. It is when somebody else shares 
and expounds our experience that we most vividly 
understand it. The image of the mirror holds true. 
Barbara had restlessly been herself all her life, but 
she had never fully seen and recognized herself until 
Daniel Pritchard’s similar nature was held up be- 
fore her. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


131 

He told her about his boyhood on a farm in an- 
other part of the state; about his wanderings — he, too, 
had been given to running away; about his eager 
study of geography and his reading of all the books 
of travel that came his way. He had been bolder 
and surer than she, as perhaps befitted his sex. His 
spells of truancy had carried him into most of the 
towns of his county; and he had never felt any com- 
punctions nor any regrets. 

‘"I always knew what I wanted to do, and I always 
hated the farm.’" 

Nevertheless, he had a conscience; and he would 
probably have stayed at home to help his father, if 
his uncle had not needed and claimed him, if a sol- 
emn family conclave had not decided that he must go 
away. 

‘‘I tell you, that was a great day,” he said, turning 
his eyes from the hills, where they had been roaming 
with Barbara’s, and meeting her gaze directly. ‘‘I 
wonder if it will always seem the day of days to me.” 

Very rich in implications was this young man’s 
flexible voice. This time it suggested that, although, 
up to the present moment, he had never doubted the 
past day’s preeminence in his life, he suddenly real- 
ized that one great day does not hinder others from 
being greater. However, he went on, with scarcely a 
pause to feel the brushings of the new idea. 

‘T needn’t try to describe it to you.” (‘‘No,” 
breathed Barbara, clasping her knees.) “You can 
imagine how it would feel to have your dream sud- 
denly given to you, full-rigged, ready for launching, 


THE HOMESTEAD 


132 

with nothing for you to do but step aboard and set 
sail. That figure is very exact; for my uncle was in 
Italy when he asked me to come to him, and I sailed 
the week after it was decided that I was to go.” 

“All alone?” cried Barbara. 

Her voice took its turn at conveying implications. 
It pulsed with longing and envy and congratulation. 
Daniel smiled at her. 

“Yes; wasn’t I lucky?” he said. “I was all alone, 
and I went and stood in the bow of the ship. There 
gloomed the broad dark seas. I tell you, it was 
great !” 

“Oh!” sighed Barbara. “Oh! I am” — generosity 
struggled with envy — “so very glad for you!” she 
finished triumphantly. 

He went on rapidly from this point. His own gen- 
erosity was stirred to spare her a too lavish flaunting 
of details. He sketched in the history of the next 
five years: his world-wide travels with his uncle — 
east and west and north and south, returning always 
to Italy for rest of body and soul; his eager reading 
of books, and study of pictures, and hearing of mu- 
sic; his glorying — yes, he could not quite spare her 
that — his glorying in the expansion and growth of 
his own spirit, as it fed on the revelations of other 
spirits, the stateliest and the brightest that the world 
has known. 

“Growth: that’s the one thing, isn’t it?” he said, 
fixing her with eyes in which the remembered ex- 
perience, living again, burned excitedly. “It’s what 


THE HOMESTEAD 133 

weVe made for. And how can we grow unless we are 
taught T' 

Involuntarily he swept the silent valley and the 
circling unresponsive hills with a glance of hopeless 
challenge; then turned to Barbara with swift apology. 

“Forgive me!” said his look. 

“Well, why don’t you teach us now?” 

Barbara spoke after a long minute’s silence, dur- 
ing which she seemed to be struggling with a conflict 
of moods. Her face was stormy. Her brows were 
swift, level wings, her cheeks were flushed and her 
mouth was tense; only her eyes (and they puzzled 
Daniel) were quiet and deep. Very wistful and 
wide, those eyes, but strangely undisturbed. When 
she spoke they had a little gleam of triumphing ob- 
scurely. 

“Exactly! Precisely!” His expression changed to 
meet the adjustment of hers, and he shifted his posi- 
tion a little, facing her more squarely. “That brings 
me back to the starting point, to what I began by 
wanting to tell you. It’s with the purpose of teaching 
people— so far as I can and they are willing to learn 
— that I have come home from Italy now. You see” 
— he instructed her, not as if he thought that she did 
not understand, but as if he craved the satisfaction 
of explaining to her — “it’s the growth of the whole 
world that really matters, of all of us together. No 
man can go very far alone. He needs to be taught, 
and he needs to teach, sharing with others what he 
has learned. So we save time for each other and help 
each other along. I want to do my part. Receiving 


134 


THE HOMESTEAD 


without giving is, after a certain point, a tormenting 
business.” 

“Yes, I suppose so.” Barbara nodded. “Weir* — 
she spread out her hands — “you can give to me.” 

His eyes embraced her. 

“God bless you,” he said. “I see that I can, and I 
have no words with which to tell you how grateful I 
am. You can perhaps understand, when I assure 
you that you are the first listener I have found in all 
these weeks.” 

“Not really?” 

Barbara looked both puzzled and pleased. 

“Really.” He nodded soberly. “I tell you, it feels 
good.” 

“Whafs been the matter?” 

“My fault, I suppose.” He knit his brows thought- 
fully. “I’ve done my best, but I haven’t seemed to 
know how to get in touch with my audience. It takes 
two to tell the truth ; perhaps it takes two to tell any- 
thing — one to speak and one to listen. I spoke as 
soon as I found a listener, didn’t I, now ?” 

“Indeed, you did!” she answered. 

“I suppose, as a matter of fact,” he went on slowly, 
“that there aren’t many country born and bred people 
who feel the way we do about the outside world.” 

“Oh! don’t you think so?” Barbara said, waking 
from a troubled revery. “I think there are lots of 
them; only they don’t know what’s the matter with 
them. And there” — the shadow on her face deepened 
— “there comes in the question whether it’s really wise 
to tell them.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


135 

He scrutinized her in silence a minute. It was evi- 
dent that her mood had changed. The swiftness had 
gone from her brows, they were brooding and hover- 
ing now ; the eager color had ebbed from her cheeks, 
and her eyes were clouded. What was the matter? 
He saw her glance furtively over her shoulder in the 
direction of the house. 

‘'Don’t you think it’s always well,” he went on, 
feeling his way and watching her, “to make people 
discontented; and if you find them already in that 
healthy condition, to do your best to help them find 
out what’s the matter with them ?” 

But Barbara was no longer his ideal listener; she 
was, in fact, apparentljV' not listening at all. Instead, 
she had gone in for wholesale brooding — eyes and 
eyebrows, mouth and drooping shoulders. Releasing 
her knees from the clasp of her arms, she propped her 
elbow on one of them and leaned her chin in her 
hand. Slowly and deliberately her gaze explored the 
ancestral acres around her, dwelling now on a hill- 
side, now on a field, now on a group of farm build- 
ings. She had an inexorable air of turning from 
cloudy visions to review the facts of life. 

“I rather think,” she said at length, pondering each 
word, “that I had better not let you teach me any- 
thing, after all.” 

“Oh, but. Miss Marshall!” Daniel’s voice was 
charged with dismay. His eyes implored her unan- 
swering profile. “But — but — ” he stammered, “I 
don’t understand. Why not? I have to. I wrote all 


136 THE HOMESTEAD 

my lectures for you. I — won’t you please tell me 
why?” 

Barbara turned on him the same look with which 
she had just been surveying the meadows, and studied 
him thoughtfully. She caught herself wishing that he 
were William, then he would understand; but at once 
she smiled at this notion. How could he be William? 

“I’m afraid I can’t possibly tell you,” she said with 
a reluctant sigh. “It’s a question of roots and wings. 
You don’t seem ever to have been troubled with 
roots.” 

“I never heard of a creature who had both roots 
and wings,” he responded slowly. 

“I have both!” she answered. 

“See here.” He admonished her with a look that 
was quite as inexorable as hers had been a few min- 
utes before. “I don’t care anything about your roots. 
Wings are my business. I’m going to be your wing 
specialist. Tonic and exercise are all you need to 
develop as glorious a pair as I have ever seen.” 

Barbara laughed at this, and glanced over her 
shoulder, trying to see her own shoulder-blades. But 
the movement brought her again face to face with 
the house ; and once more the light dropped out of her 
eyes, and her grave mood deepened. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. I’m sor- 
ry. No.” 

William came upon them, sitting thus — Barbara 
troubled and brooding, Daniel no less troubled but 
fired with scrutiny — and stopped and regarded them 
from a careful distance. For a heavy minute his 


THE HOMESTEAD 


137 


older face was troubled too ; then something within it 
seemed to reach up and pluck the anxiety from his 
eyes, as one might haul down a flag of distress. The 
lines of his mouth set themselves. There in the pas- 
ture, beyond the stone wall, he came to some inner 
resolution which had the outward effect of solidify- 
ing his whole expression. He had already turned to 
go away when Barbara spied him. 

“Oh, William!’’ She sprang to her feet. “Why, 
where are you going? Aren’t you coming here? 
I’ve just been wishing you’d come.” 

“Well, I thought from your looks that you were in 
the Roman Campagna or on the dome of Saint Pe- 
ter’s, and I left my seven-leagued boots at home,” he 
apologized, striding the stone wall in a manner to 
disprove his last words. 

“We were planning a trip there,” Daniel replied, 
seizing upon the occasion before Barbara could give 
it any turn which he might not like. “Won’t you 
come with us?” 

“Do, William.” 

Barbara’s recent mood veered enough to let her 
fall in with Daniel’s suggestion. She smiled invit- 
ingly at William. 

“Well” — he smiled back at her — “thank you. I’ll 
see about it. I’m pretty slow going, you know. But 
you have wings.” 

“Hooray!” shouted Daniel boyishly. “That’s just 
what I’ve been telling her. But she insists that she 
has roots. She hasn’t, has she? Mr. Sloan, you help 
me dig her out.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


138 

William sighed. Here was this perfect stranger 
instinctively appealing to him as the natural arbiter 
of Barbara's destiny; here was life making upon him 
the most ironical of demands: that he turn his lady 
away from him, that he bring about the undoing of 
his own dearest hopes. What did they think him ? A 
stone? Very well, then; he would be a staunch stone, 
he would let them build the house of their dreams se- 
curely on him. 

“Her wings are much stronger than her roots," he 
said authoritatively (he might as well get what sat- 
isfaction he could from the full assertion of his pow- 
er), “but she has to be taught to trust them." 

“Again, just what I said," cried Daniel. “We'll 
teach her together, shall we, Mr. Sloan?" 

His dreamy poet's eyes were very young and eager. 
William looked into them, measuring him. Then he 
looked over at Barbara, standing erect, her head 
thrown back, her eyes at grapples with the windows 
of her house. 

“I’ll have to do all the work, my boy," thought the 
older man; “and under the circumstances that's ask- 
ing a good deal. However " 

“Very well," he assented. 


XIII 


B ARBARA’S friendship with Daniel was the first 
serious cloud that had ever come between her 
father and herself. Her refusal to marry Dick Mar- 
shall had been a negative issue, entailing no positive 
consequences. But Henry felt that real danger lurked 
in the new relationship. 

He could not be expected to like the young man. 
Dreamers and farmers do not often see eye to eye. 

‘‘Ignorant fellow!” he muttered, at first not quite 
venturing into open speech, but managing to make his 
murmurs sufficiently distinct. “It’s a disgrace for 
him to pretend that he was brought up on a farm. 
Why, he can’t even back a wagon into the barn.” 

“Barbara, he’s a fool,” he said later, growing bold- 
er with his increasing alarm and with his daughter’s 
silence. “I can’t stand it to have him coming here all 
the time. Why don’t you stop it ? I should think he’d 
bore you to death.” 

“No, he doesn’t bore me.” 

Barbara was a good deal more troubled than vexed. 
She had never been vexed with her father, she did 
not know how to begin. But she did not yield to his 
inhospitable suggestions, for her need was as great 
as her innocence; and she trusted that time and habit 
would adjust the situation. 

139 


140 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Daniel did in truth come very often — sometimes 
every other day, sometimes oftener. At first he pre- 
sented himself in the evening; but Henry was such a 
ubiquitous presence and such an interrupting one that 
by and by the young man took to dropping in during 
the afternoon. This interfered with* Barbara's house- 
work, obliging her either to scant it or to annoy her 
father by finishing it in the evening; and so did not 
obviate difficulties as fully as it was intended to. 

Barbara did not try to influence developments. 
Hands off from that which is precious! It lies on 
the knees of the gods. More and more her spirit 
came to depend on Daniel's visits, and her mind to 
anticipate and remember them. Wings? She had 
them. They grew fast, developing a power to mount 
with her, the minute she heard Daniel's step at the 
door. Then away they carried her; and, when he 
entered, he frequently found her already gone, al- 
ready waiting for him on the shore of some distant 
sea or in the dusky nave of some cathedral. 

She was more than his listener ; she was more than 
anything he had thought a pupil could be. Some- 
times, instead of learning and following, she taught 
and led. She made him feel for the first time the 
significance of many a familiar thing. So that, to 
him too, their hours together were richer in meaning 
than he had expected. 

Their relation was wholly spiritual. They thought 
of and talked to each other in terms of seas and cy- 
presses, fountains and bridges, cathedrals, palaces. It 
was part of their likeness of nature that they both 


THE HOMESTEAD 


141 


guarded cold, white, unlighted altars in their unvis- 
ited souls. He looked in her eyes to catch the reflec- 
tions of the Chartres windows; and she looked in his 
to trace the spring of a Gothic arch. 

He was very systematic with her, saving her from 
the mistakes which his own unaided, both-handed 
snatching at knowledge had made. Step by step, 
from the first principles of architecture, painting, and 
sculpture, he led her along to full appreciation of the 
intricate glories whose photographic representations 
strewed the kitchen table. She followed obediently. 
Sometimes her eagerness showed her a short cut which 
he had not discovered ; she was nimbler than he. 

Wonderful hours! The homestead expanded 
(grudgingly, doubtless!) to let in an ancient city. 
The mountains outside the window dissolved, giving 
place to the desert or ocean. The very fire in the 
kitchen stove glowed ^tna or Vesuvius, Barbara’s 
soul went beyond all bounds, and reveled and exulted. 

But then came the evening; and in exact proportion 
to her anticipation of the afternoon was her dread of 
the evening hours. Her father was now almost never 
the genial comrade that he used to be. Instead of 
discussing the details of the day’s happenings, he 
either avoided them so conspicuously that they loomed 
out of all proportion gigantic, or handled them rough- 
ly and summarily. “That fellow been here again? 
Umph! Well, I thought so.” Barbara was almost 
afraid of him. Loving him dearly, she had always 
stood in deep respect of him ; like her mother, she had 
been accustomed to defer to him. It hurt her and 


142 


THE HOMESTEAD 


frightened her to give him displeasure. But she had 
a strangely passive feeling that she could not help 
herself, that she was in the power of something 
stronger than either of them, something that was 
nothing less than the sweep of the river of life. She 
bore herself toward him submissively — which, per- 
haps, further exasperated him. Such silence and pa- 
tience on the part of a child who is causing one in- 
finite trouble smacks of insincerity. But no one who 
looked in Barbara’s eyes could call her insincere. 
Henry avoided them. 

Of course he was acting like a spoiled child; but, 
then, he was spoiled, and not altogether by his own 
fault. Dominant natures, especially when they are 
loved, find the world only too ready to humor them. 
His life had obeyed him (he would have liked to see 
it try to do anything else!) ; Hester had obeyed him 
(though her love would have preferred to call the 
agreement one of sympathy) ; it was not strange that 
he expected his child to meet and fulfil the ultimate 
purpose of his heart. Surely, it was a worthy pur- 
pose: nothing less than the carrying on of the work 
which he had developed, to which he had given his 
life. Its importance was proved by the fact that he 
had thus devoted himself; naturally, nothing seemed 
to him quite so essential as its continuance. 

There was, therefore, excuse for them both in the 
sad alienation which grew between them. There is 
always excuse for the bitterness of those who love 
each other, but fail to see things in the same light. 

Barbara took counsel with William. She surprised 


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143 


herself by doing this; for, thinking the matter over, 
she had come to the conclusion that here at last was 
a difficulty which she could not share with him. It 
was too delicate, too intricate, too charged with pos- 
sible implications which one would rather not recog- 
nize. Loyalty on one side, maidenly reserve on the 
other, seemed to seal her lips. Admirable resolution! 
It was possible, perhaps highly commendable, to rea- 
son so austerely; but one meeting with her old friend 
on the hillside, one glance from his kind eyes, turned 
all her confidence loose in its familiar channel. 

‘‘What shall I ever do, William?” she said, sitting 
down abruptly on a rock. “Father’s so displeased 
with me!” 

Tears stood in her eyes. 

“Yes, I know.” 

William sat down more slowly, sighing and frown- 
ing a little. Perhaps he too had decided that this 
matter was not open to discussion. 

“Has he told you about it?” 

“No, he hasn’t; and I don’t like that. He has al- 
ways talked things over with me, especially” — he 
lifted one eyebrow at her — “things that concern you.” 

“Well, what shall I do, William?” 

William plucked two blades of grass and measured 
them against each other. 

“You aren’t doing anything, are you?” 

“No; precisely!” 

Barbara’s tone implied that that was just the point. 
She gave him a glance of relief and gratitude. 


144 the homestead 

‘‘Well, I guess I’d keep on doing it,” he counseled 
her. 

Neither of them had yet hinted at the real cause of 
the trouble. Was it for him to speak? Was it for 
her? Was it for either of them? She took her cour- 
age in both hands. A deep flush rose from her throat 
and invaded her cheeks and forehead. 

“I can’t bear to think what he thinks,” she con- 
fessed. Her mouth quivered, her eyebrows spread 
wings; only her eyes kept her to her task. “If he 
didn’t act so, the idea would never have occurred to 
rne. And it isn’t true; William, you know it isn’t 
true.” 

He did not look at her. Her eyes waited valiantly 
for him a minute ; then, as he continued to spare them, 
they relaxed and softened. It was a pity that he could 
not have had the reward of reading their gratitude. 
But perhaps he saw more than he indicated. He knew 
Barbara’s eyes pretty well by heart. 

“It’s Italy and France and the sea,” he observed, in 
a matter-of-fact tone. 

“Of course! And England and Constantinople and 
Egypt and the whole world. Oh! nobody can im- 
agine what it means to me to hear about these places. 
I’ve wanted them all my life, and now he comes and 
gives them to me.” 

This time William did look up, sharply. He knew 
that she was no longer looking at him, and he wanted 
to catch a glimpse of the spirit behind the glowing 
words. His own eyes softened (though there had not 
really been need of that) as he studied the rapt and 


THE HOMESTEAD 


H5 


eager expression — parted lips, wide eyes, earnest 
brow. What Barbara’s soul sprang thus utterly forth 
to welcome and take must be incontrovertibly her 
right. It was his loyal office as friend to see that she 
secured it. As for a possible unconscious complexity 
of desire, that was none of his business. 

' William liked Daniel. He met him not infre- 
quently in the Marshall kitchen and in the neighbor- 
ing fields. Two people can hardly haunt the same 
corner of a valley, especially when their errands are 
similar, without being more or less thrown together. 
Daniel liked William too. He found him slow but 
infallibly sure of response, friendly and patient and 
unobtrusive. Sometimes he listened intelligently to 
the discussions of Italy; sometimes he went away in 
the midst without interrupting them. 

‘‘A fine, good fellow!’^ Daniel broke off once to 
say, watching the stalwart, retreating back. “And 
how he loves you, doesn’t he?” 

“Why, yes, I suppose he does,” Barbara assented, 
a little surprised. 

But Daniel did not like the homestead. 

“There’s something strange about old houses,” he 
said, coaxing Barbara out into the sere meadows one 
mild early winter afternoon, and drawing a breath of 
relief as a shoulder of the hill hid the house from 
sight. “Or, rather, I suppose it’s not really strange 
at all, but inevitable. Your house has had a hundred 
years in which to gather personality from the people 
who have lived in it, and it has made the most of its 
time. It’s a corker, isn’t it?” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


146 

Barbara laughed. Her grave young friend did not 
often use slang. 

‘‘Sometimes I love it/* she answered, with a vague- 
ly defensive feeling in face of the unmistakable 
obloquy of the last epithet. 

“Do you? Oh, no! you mustn’t. It isn’t your 
friend. That is — of course^ — I beg your pardon — I 
didn’t mean ” 

Daniel broke off helplessly. Barbara’s eyes were 
flashing. 

But she recovered herself in an instant, and laughed 
again. 

“Of course you didn’t. It’s I who should beg your 
pardon,” she said. “I don’t know what got into me. 
Often I don’t know what possesses me in my feel- 
ings and actions about that old house.” 

“I suppose it’s a racial matter with you as well as 
with it,” he replied thoughtfully, relieved at her swift 
return to friendliness. “You both have the same past 
behind you. It’s funny you’re not more alike. But 
you’re not, you’re not alike.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” Barbara pondered. “Some- 
times we get on very well. We were capital friends 
all last summer. I really think it liked me a lot.” 

“And you?” 

“Oh! I loved it. Yes, really. You see” — she hesi- 
tated, and her voice deepened — “there’s my mother’s 
garden. I loved my mother. And you may have no- 
ticed that I rather adore my father.” 

“Yes.” Daniel sighed. 

“I coaxed the old house till it gave over being so 


THE HOMESTEAD 


H7 


absurdly mysterious and gloomy. The day I brought 
home the new curtains it actually smiled. And that 
evening, when I sat on the steps, waiting for father, 
it told me some very pretty stories.” 

'‘But now ?” 

"Oh, now” — it was Barbara’s turn to sigh — "it is 
disappointed in me again. It sees that I really am 
not the kind of woman it wants me to be.” 

"You can’t help it.” 

"I don’t know.” Once again Barbara demurred. 
"Don’t you think I could if I tried?” 

"No!” He wheeled about in front of her, and went 
walking backward, that he might directly face her. 
"That which you are, you are. God has made you 
so. He has given you wings. You mustn’t clip them 
or fold them; you must spread and use them. That 
dark old house is no place for you. The sea is your 
place, Rome is your place, Egypt, Greece. You be- 
long in the sunlight and the open. Barbara!” He 
had never called her by name before, and a slight 
pause followed and stressed the innovation. "Marry 
me and come away with me; that will set you free.” 

With one accord, they stopped walking and stood 
as if rooted in the hillside, staring at each other. The 
second pause which set in soon amounted to a huge 
silence. What had happened? His face was as 
thrillingly astonished as hers. In their wide young 
eyes there was a dazzled, groping wonder. 

Barbara spoke first; her words tumbled out Inco- 
herently. She neither knew nor cared what she said. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


148 

her one desire being to stop the resonant echo of 
Daniel’s last crashing utterance. 

‘Thank you — ^you’re very kind — ^but, really, I — I — 
isn’t it nearly supper time? — I think I’d better be 
going home. There’s a short cut here, through this 
field, to the village. Please I” 

He left her obediently, and not altogether reluc- 
tantly. His need of a chance for self-recovery was 
as great as hers. They gave each other a quick, shy 
glance, full of mutual query and solicitude; then part- 
ed without so much as a touching of hands. 

That evening it happened that Henry Marshall de- 
cided to take his lurking trouble in hand and see if 
he could not shake it out of itself, forcibly compel it 
to loose its hold on him. Infelicitous moment! He 
could hardly have chosen it more unfortunately. Bar- 
bara’s dreamy silence at the supper table ought to 
have warned him ; and so it did, but only to exasper- 
ate him. He broke off in the midst of a monologue 
on the subject of winter logging, and laid down his 
knife and fork. 

“See here, girl!” He startled his daughter into at- 
tention. “You’re not hearing a word I say. You 
must listen to me. These things are important. Who’s 
the head of this farm?” 

“Why, you, father.” 

Barbara’s softly waving wings drooped and shrank, 
as a familiar chill struck through them. 

“Well, I tell you, I shan’t be long. I’m ageing fast 
this winter. And when I’m gone ” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


149 

But Barbara slipped from her chair, and ran and 
knelt beside him, her face against his arm. 

“Don't, father," she pleaded. 

He held her away from him. In spite of himself, 
his voice softened, but it continued to speak the words 
which his will had set it. 

“You simply must grow up, Barbara. You must 
stop fooling and dreaming and playing. Life's a seri- 
ous business. Your life is right in your hand, if you 
only would take hold of it. You must take hold of 
it." 

He waited for her answer. She could not say, “I 
am grown up. I have grown so fast that I can hardly 
keep pace with myself. And my life is not in my 
hand ; it is over yonder, waiting and beckoning. Oh, 
let me go !" Her father would find nothing but folly 
in a speech like that. So, for a while she said noth- 
ing; and then, “Yes, father," she answered, as usual. 

Later in the evening, when her father had been 
long in bed, and she herself had for some time been 
lying awake on her pillow, watching the moonlight 
steal across her bedroom floor, she rose and put on 
her wrapper and crept softly downstairs. In the 
dusky parlor she climbed on a chair and reached up 
and took one of the big pink sea-shells down from 
the shelf. With a caressing gesture she folded it in 
her hands and held it to her ear. For several min- 
utes she stood motionless, listening, with her breath 
coming softly and her face glimmering pale in the 
shadows. Then she sighed and put the shell back 
and returned to her bed. 


XIV 


I F only she could have had a chance to prove those 
last words of submission, to act upon them a 
little and give them some weight! Thus Barbara 
thought in the days and weeks of agony that fol- 
lowed. 

At breakfast, the morning after the outbreak, she 
was on the point of suggesting that she join her 
father in the wood lot as soon as her dishes were 
washed. But then she remembered that Daniel had 
left a wonderful book on Spain, and she hesitated. 
Before she had fully made up her mind, her father 
made it up for her by leaving the house. He did not 
say good-bye. She looked after him, wondering 
whether she would not run and exact some parting 
word. But he was in a mood which imposed a cer- 
tain timidity on her; and again she hesitated until it 
was too late. 

She thought it her just punishment that she could 
not read her book, that, when she sat down with it, 
though her eyes scanned the words, her thoughts re- 
fused to travel beyond the boundaries of the farm. 
Every few minutes she caught herself staring over 
the top of the page, riveted by some unknown obses- 
sion. 

There was no one to warn her of the event, unless 
150 


THE HOMESTEAD 


151 

Fido, the dog, may have softened the blow a little by 
his excited arrival at the door in the middle of the 
morning. Something had happened, some one was 
coming. She rose and looked out. 

‘‘He ain’t dead!’’ 

Doubtless the two farm hands thought this the most 
reassuring message they could shout across the yard, 
as they toiled to lift their heavy burden from the 
wood sled. 

“But you’d better send for the doctor,” they added 
simultaneously. 

Not dead! Barbara soon discovered the comfort- 
ing value of those at first paralyzing words. 

“Oh ! are you sure ?” she cried sharply, as she bent 
over the helpless, huddled mass that had once been 
her father. It seemed to her that a more complete 
surrender to annihilation could hardly be imagined. 
Then, without waiting for an answer, she led the way 
into the house, swept back the covers from her 
father’s bed, helped the men lay him in place, set one 
of them to undressing him, sent the other for the 
doctor, and brought hot water, brandy, ammonia — all 
in a swift, tense moment. 

She was almost sorry when she perceived signs of 
returning consciousness. She wished that he would 
wait until the doctor came and administered something 
to soothe the pain which he must inevitably suffer. 
She could not bear to see him suffer ; she set her teeth. 
But her experience with her mother had taught her 
what that gray pallor of the lips signified. She knew 
there was no time to lose. Therefore, when he strug- 


1 52 THE HOMESTEAD 

gled to speak she dropped everything and bent her ear 
to his face. 

‘Tather, it’s Barbara,” she said, thinking to help 
and steady his flickering mind. 

In all his dire extremity, in his mounting anguish, 
he smiled at that. As if, being alive at all, he could 
fail to know Barbara! She caught a sob back just in 
time. Never had anything so touched and wrung her 
as that smile. 

‘‘Be — a — good — girl. Promise — father,” he whis- 
pered painfully. 

There was interrogation in his struggling voice. 

‘'Oh, yes! Oh, yes! I promise, father. Forgive 
me. 

Barbara laid her stricken head beside her father’s, 
nearly as spent as he. 

He did not speak again, he could not; but she felt 
his fingers feel feebly for hers, and knew that there 
was peace between them. 

He was dead when the doctor arrived. There was 
nothing to do but send for Reuben, and make all the 
dreary arrangements for the last sad services. 

Barbara wandered out into the garden. The neigh- 
bors had flocked to her, and had taken all her immedi- 
ate responsibilities out of her hands. She was dazed. 
She did not know where she was going nor what she 
intended to do. One gray face filled the universe, 
and one murmur held her ears : “Be — a — good — girl ; 
promise — father.” “Oh, yes, father; yes!’^ 

Quite of their own undirected accord her feet car- 
ried her across the sere winter lawn to the corner of 


THE HOMESTEAD 


153 

the stone wall where she had first talked with Daniel. 
And there she found him again ; or, rather, he found 
her. 

He had been watching the house from a distance, 
hesitating, uncertain what to do. Experienced as he 
was in some of the phases of life, he was in others 
quite ignorant; and simple, primitive, human sorrow 
was unfamiliar to him. He was afraid of it; rather, 
perhaps, he was afraid of himself in connection with 
it. When Barbara first came out of the house, though 
he fastened his gaze upon her, he still hesitated. He 
hoped that she would look up and see him and give 
him his cue. Then, when he saw that she had sat 
down on the stone wall, with her back to him, and 
was evidently plunged in a timeless revery, he drew 
near her, step by step, doubtful and troubled. When 
she heard him and lifted her eyes he was paralyzed 
by the expression of woe in her face. Staring at her, 
he stood helpless, completely at a loss. 

Although she was looking directly at him, it was a 
full minute before she saw him. If he had realized 
this he might have been less dumfounded. Her wide 
eyes, stretched to their utmost with sorrow, focused 
themselves very slowly upon any concrete presence. 
But alas for him when she did see him I 

‘‘Oh ! go away !” 

She shrank as from an evil spirit. 

“I think I hate you 

Her eyes condemned and cast him out. 

But perhaps it was well that she leaped at once to 
this extreme of feeling, and got it over with. For her 


THE HOMESTEAD 


154 

generosity could not allow her to hold to her revulsion 
in face of the blank dismay that met her in his eyes. 

‘Torgive me.’^ She caught her breath on the first 
of the sobs that were at last swelling from her heart. 
‘‘I didn’t mean it. It was all my fault. Oh ! please go 
away !” 

William, striding over the meadows by the shortest 
cut from his house, did not stop to ask himself wheth- 
er he was about to intrude between Daniel and Bar- 
bara, whether his third presence was wanted. If he 
had thought anything at all about third presences, he 
would undoubtedly have relegated Daniel to the un- 
grateful number. But his whole concern was for 
Barbara. He had just heard the news. He stepped 
over the wall and dismissed Daniel ^with as uncon- 
scious a brushing aside as if he had been a fly. 

‘'Steady, now, Barbara! Steady!” 

He took her hands from her face, partly that he 
might hold them in his, partly that he might leave her 
no refuge in which to let herself go. He believed 
that tears have more of madness than relief in them. 
He stood in front of her, shielding her from Daniel, 
but, for his own part, gazing down at her convulsed 
features with the fearlessness of one who knows that 
he can trust his love to meet every most helpless need 
of the beloved. 

She stopped crying almost immediately. A few 
long, rending sobs shook her, and she leaned her fore- 
head on William’s hands, to steady herself. But she 
was soon quiet again. 

“Thank you, William,” she said, looking up. ‘T’m 


THE HOMESTEAD 155 

all right now. I’ll go back to the house and find 
something to do. Please come with me.” 

Daniel made his way out of the garden in a subdued 
and impotent state of mind. Was that the girl with 
whom he had lately been such close friends, whom he 
had only yesterday asked to marry him ? Marry him ? 
Well, she was free to do so now. And she was more 
beautiful than ever. But she had lost her wings. 
That august creature, seated on the stone wall, 
crowned with her grief, had as established an air as 
the house, seemed as deeply rooted as the elm trees. 
He was profoundly afraid of her. Yet, not for the 
lure of all the earth would he have left her neighbor- 
hood. 

Late in the evening he was sitting in his little room 
in the village, when William came and knocked at his 
door. 

“No, I can’t stop,” said the older man. “I came 
over on an errand, and must go right back. But I 
want to tell you that Barbara Marshall is going to need 
you greatly in a few days. I hope you won’t fail her. 
You can probably do more than any one else to help 
her through the winter.” 

The voice that said this and the eyes that directed 
the words to their mark were full of a complex sig- 
nificance. They apologized for the high-handed ig- 
noring of a few hours before; they deferred to a su- 
perior power which had been temporarily in abey- 
ance; they sent out an appeal and a challenge for gen- 
erous sympathy. Daniel met them responsively. 

“I only want to be of service,” he said, somewhat 


THE HOMESTEAD 


156 

thickly. ‘^You may be sure I shall do the best I can. 
But you know her better than 1. Won^t you tell me 
when you think she’ll be glad to see me?” 

It was fortunate that the events of the day had 
somewhat dulled William’s sense of humor. For, 
though a person may laugh at himself, when he sees 
in what a predicament life has placed him, the laugh- 
ter implies perception, and hurts. Under the stress of 
the present need there seemed nothing remarkable to 
William in the commission to go and fetch another 
man to comfort his beloved. Why not? The point 
was that she be comforted. 


XV 


N OW!” said life to Barbara Marshall. *‘Now!” — 
and looked to its weapons. The time had come. 
She must give over her dallyings and uncertainties, 
and meet the issue squarely. 

She realized this as soon as her father had been 
laid beside her mother and she returned to take up 
her existence in the old house. 

Through some inadvertence on the part of her rela- 
tives it happened that she drove home alone from the 
cemetery: a situation which no well-meaning friend 
would have willingly permitted, but which was really 
more grateful than trying to her. She felt a great 
need of quiet, of re-self-possession. The coming and 
going, the weeping and waiting, the emotional tension 
of the last days had been bewildering to her. She 
wanted to gather herself together and face the circum- 
stance which had shattered her. It was a comfort just 
to sit in the seclusion which an unshared carriage af- 
fords and let the old horse, Peter, take her slowly 
home. 

But when she came to. the turn in the road which 
gave her her first view of the homestead she found 
herself summoned to an encounter which she had not 
anticipated. “Now 1” Yes, it was then that the con- 
flict began. 


157 


THE HOMESTEAD 


158 

Of course the thing was but a continuation of a 
lifelong struggle; there was nothing new in the chal- 
lenge of the deep roof and the small, watchful win- 
dow-panes. But continuations are precisely the forces 
that know how to startle us most, with the sudden 
turns they take, the crises at which they arrive. Bar- 
bara’s house confronted her as if the two of them 
had met for the first time. 

Well, that was natural. Even in her weary dismay 
she realized that her father’s death made such a differ- 
ence in her relations with the whole environment of 
her life that she had no choice but to take a new atti- 
tude towards everything. So long as her father had 
been alive, with his capable hand on the wheel of im- 
mediate circumstance, she and the homestead had de- 
ferred the issue which lay between them. Now they 
must take it up. 

Come to think of it (thoughts come fast in mo- 
ments of stress), she had done very little first-hand 
living. She had lived her mother’s life, and her 
father’s, taking their standards as she had found 
them, and doing her different (rather indifferent) best 
to conform to them. Now she was left to her own 
standards. In spite of her sorrow and loneliness, in 
spite of her soul’s desolation, she felt a quick stab of 
exultation, as she realized that she was free to take 
hold of life directly, and — 

‘‘Steady! Steady!” said the old house. “Don’t 
leave me out of your reckoning. If it’s standards 
you’re missing, I rather think that I have one or two 
with which I can supply you.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


159 

Alas for the dear stab ! It ended in numbness. The 
standards of a whole race, precisely alike and of cu- 
mulative force, were held up before her by the sturdy 
old walls. 

But she was so tired! Why could the house not 
have let her alone for a few days, have given her time 
to come to herself and take her bearings? It was 
not fair to waylay her thus, when she was uncom- 
monly helpless through very lassitude. It was not 
wise, either. As Peter dragged her in through the 
gate she almost hated her home. 

But that did not matter: love or hate. Obedience 
was what the house was after; and it knew enough to 
seize the outworks, to strike while the iron was hot. 
Barbara must not be allowed to come home and take 
up her new life under any misunderstanding of what 
was expected of her. 

William had noticed her solitary departure from 
the cemetery; and, though he had acquiesced in it — 
reading her mood in her face — ^he had hurried across 
the fields to anticipate her return to the homestead. 
He came out from the barn door to meet her. 

“William, how good of you!” 

She yielded the reins to him, and sat watching him 
while he unharnessed the horse. Tears came into her 
eyes; but, when he paid no attention to them, they 
ebbed without overflowing. When he put out his 
hand to help her down she sprang of her own accord. 

He let her take the first shock of entering the empty 
house, for he knew that the heart wants to honor sol- 
emn moments by realizing them. But he followed 


i6o 


THE HOMESTEAD 


close behind her; and, while she stood in the middle 
of the kitchen floor, looking slowly about her, he 
filled the tea-kettle. 

“We didn’t either of us have any dinner,*’ he ex- 
plained, when she glanced at him. 

Then he let her make the tea and spread the bread 
and butter; and, though the eating of the little meal 
was but a poor pretense, the simple, everyday action 
served very mercifully to bridge the home-coming cri- 
sis. Nay, the occasion was more than a bridge, even 
more than a mutual service ; to William, at least, there 
was in it a sacramental significance. 

“Barbara, thus I pledge thee my life.” 

He said this, not with his lips, but with his heart, 
looking across the rim of his teacup at the girl’s pale, 
serious face, and realizing the greatness of her pres- 
ent need. 

Later in the day some neighbors came to see if she 
needed anything, offering to stay with her or to take 
her home with them. She refused their services. She 
had already secured the general house-worker whom 
she would now need as assistant and companion; and 
she preferred to be otherwise alone. Reuben and his 
wife stayed to supper and spent the evening. That 
was well. Specters — even Marshall specters — did not 
thrive in Reuben’s solid presence. But his parting 
words made his sister’s heart sink. 

“I’ll be around to-morrow to talk things over with 
you.” 

“Oh, Reuben! give her a few days, can’t you?’' 


THE HOMESTEAD i6i 

William interposed — he had also stayed on through 
the evening. ‘‘She’s pretty tired.” 

Reuben set his jaw. Barbara thought that he looked 
not unlike the homestead as it had confronted her 
that afternoon. 

“She’s got to be tired,” he said. “She don’t know 
what it means to be tired. She’s only played at life 
so far. But now she’s got to work; and the sooner 
she begins, the better.” 

“Very well, Reuben.” 

Again Barbara’s heart sank, as she heard herself 
utter the familiar words of acquiescence. Very well, 
father; very well, Reuben; very well, old house! Was 
she going to go on forever and ever repeating this 
formula? 

William, watching her, set his own kindly and pa- 
tient jaw in a way that was almost comically unusual 
with him. He went home by a circuitous route that 
led him directly past his own door and down to the 
village. Once more he presented himself on Daniel 
Pritchard’s threshold. 

“She’ll need you to-morrow,” he said succinctly. 


XVI 


D aniel was prompt in preparing to act on the 
welcome hint. No sooner had William left him 
than he turned to his photographs; and over them he 
sat long, brooding and planning. It had never before 
been his difficult privilege to undertake the kind of 
service which he had now in mind ; but, little by little, 
he thought he saw his way clear. He had failed Bar- 
bara the other day. The memory hurt him ; but, be- 
ing sincere and humble, he was not so much discour- 
aged as prompted to try again. If he could not com- 
fort her, surely he could hit upon something outside 
himself, something vast and deep, that would do the 
gracious work. There was Rome. Surely Rome 
could help her. Rome could do everything. 

Alone in his little room, by his midnight lamp, he 
hunted out pictures of grave old buildings, peaceful 
ruins, patient bridges and city gates that had seen the 
passing of much water and many people. He hung 
over views of the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colos- 
seum, selecting aspects that showed them most calm 
and beneficent. They would tell his friend that sorrow 
and weariness only deepen and mellow life„that every- 
thing works in with everything else for beauty and 
truth. Also he chose a few trophies of old revolution 
and strife, that she might see how the will of man has 


THE HOMESTEAD 


163 

always had to ally itself with the Will of God. He 
had never been so thrilled by the possible beauty and 
greatness of his chosen mission as he was that eve- 
ning. It might be a cure of souls. 

But, his scheme of service being complete, waiting 
only its eager application, he hesitated. Should he go 
to her at once in the morning? No, she would be 
busy, she would not want him. He had a man’s vague 
respect and concern for the domestic duties which 
seem to exact a woman’s matutinal care. Moreover, 
he still stood in awe of her. He had not spoken to 
her nor brought himself to her notice since the morn- 
ing of her father’s death. At the funeral he had hov- 
ered on the outskirts of the little crowd of friends and 
relatives, watching and wishing, but venturing no 
demonstration. She had passed him on her way to 
her carriage; but she had not seen him, and he had- 
made no sign. Her sorrow clothed her awfully to 
him. Would it still shroud her, now that the crisis 
was over and she had resumed her ordinary, daily 
life? He was afraid. 

Therefore, it happened that he was not the first one 
to greet her on the threshold of the new life which 
she faced with the new day ; his hand did not seize the 
initial chance. But, had he been ever so confident 
and prompt, he could probably not have outstripped 
Reuben. Moreover, second chances frequently prove 
as good as first ones, especially when the first ones 
have wrought a certain stress and havoc. 

Barbara woke in the pale winter dawn. From her 
bed she could look into the sunset gap in the long line 


THE HOMESTEAD 


164 

of the near mountains. Nothing is colder and bleaker 
than a sunset gap in the dawn. The eastern sky was 
doubtless already pulsing and quickening with golden 
light, heralding warmth and cheer ; but Barbara could 
not see that, and the west was pallid. It struck her 
with an intolerably chill dismay, very poignant in spite 
of its leaden weight. Oh, the silence and loneliness of 
it, the inexorable denial ! She sat up in bed and made 
a gesture with her hands, as if she were pushing 
against some actual, physical incumbrance which 
threatened to crush her. Then she sprang out and 
began to dress. 

Downstairs she ran out in the garden. Yes, there 
was the sunrise; the east was brimming with it. But 
it did not comfort her, as she had hoped. Rather, it 
gave her a fresh pang. The sun was coming, bringing 
another long day. How was she going to dispose of 
it, how fill its unsuggestive hours? She looked about 
her forlornly. There was no work for her in the gar- 
den; the ground was already frozen a little, and the 
flower-beds had long since been thatched for the win- 
ter. She glanced toward the kitchen. Her new hand- 
maid, Priscilla Jones, was stirring among the kettles 
and pans, capably getting breakfast. Never mind, she 
would help her ; she must do something. She could no 
longer face this immitigable sky, on the one hand im- 
posing sunrise, on the other denying peace. She re- 
turned to the house and bestirred herself to such good 
purpose that breakfast was smoking on the table half 
an hour before the usual time, and Priscilla said. 


THE HOMESTEAD 165 

‘‘My ! Miss Barb’ra, what a worker ! I guess you 
don't need me much." 

That was the truth, she reflected, as she elaborately 
made her bed and put her room in order. She did 
not need Priscilla, nor did she want her. Priscilla 
was a friendly soul, much given to conversation. 

“Oh, dear!" sighed Barbara, sitting down in her 
cold little room, rather than return to the warm but 
too sociable kitchen. “Oh, dear! What am I going 
to do?" 

“Get married," said Reuben later in the morning, 
when she propounded practically this same question 
to him. 

He had arrived at the homestead as early as his 
chores would let him; and, knowing that he was in- 
flexibly determined on the talk which he had suggested 
the evening before, his sister had led him into the 
unused parlor and had lighted a fire in the fireplace. 
The unaccustomed situation — turned out of their 
kitchen by a stranger — gave her a natural opportunity 
to voice her discontent. 

“I don't need Priscilla. I don't want her. Why 
must I have her?" 

“Because it wouldn't be right nor safe for you to 
live in the house alone." 

There was impatience in Reuben's reply. The case 
was so obvious! 

“Reuben, I really need the work." 

Barbara knew that her brother's mind was closed 
to spiritual needs; he could not possibly understand 
what she meant. But her extremity seemed to leave 


i66 


THE HOMESTEAD 


her no choice but to appeal to him. She turned to 
him from the hearth-stone, where she knelt with the 
tongs in her hand, and fastened pleading eyes on his 
severe young face. No use! 

It was then that he told her that she had better 
marry. 

‘"Doesn’t John Andrews come here a good deal?” 
he suggested. “He’s a first-rate farmer.” 

Barbara flushed hotly. She had kept her thoughts 
from any speculation over John’s frequent visits. She, 
had only known that she could never be anything but 
distantly polite to him, and she had noticed with some 
relief that he came more seldom lately. Reuben’s 
crude question was offensive to her. 

“Well, suit yourself,” said her brother, shrugging 
his shoulders at the indignant look she flashed him. 
“But if you won’t have a husband, you must have a 
hired girl. That’s flat.” 

“I guess you won’t find that time hangs heavy on 
your hands, anyway,” he went on, with a gleam in his 
eye that might have been honestly meant for a rally- 
ing reassurance, but that freshly discouraged poor 
Barbara. “There will always be plenty for you to 
do. This is a big farm. There are some things to 
which you ought to give your attention at once. I 
came to* tell you about them. Come and sit by the 
table; I have some papers for you to read.” 

Barbara obeyed mechanically. She was too tired 
and sad to resist; but she was also too preoccupied to 
give a careful attention. She rested her elbow on 
the edge of the table, leaning her head in her hand; 


THE HOMESTEAD 167 

and absently followed the motions of her brother's 
pencil. He was pointing out clauses in a paper that 
referred to negotiations concerning the purchase of 
some land. Land? More land? But the farm al- 
ready comprised several hundred acres. What could 
her father want with more land ? Her father ! Alas ! 
The instinctive reference fell back from its empty 
goal, and hurt her cruelly. Well, Reuben, then. But 
Reuben, had nothing to do with the farm any more. 
Where should she turn? She felt as if her spirit were 
running from one point to another, blindly trying to 
deposit a quite intolerable burden, and were all the 
time being steadily, quietly forced to stand still and 
adjust itself to the unwelcome load. She could not, 
would not bring herself to recognize her own obli- 
gation. 

But, since she had to — ! With a characteristic 
flash she suddenly accepted the responsibility and 
acted upon it. 

‘‘Yes, I understand," she said slowly. “This thing 
is now for me to decide. Very well, I decide not to 
make the purchase." 

For a moment she faced Reuben as coldly and 
steadily as he faced her. 

But the flash was quenched in a moment. For h6r 
to decide ! So she might flatter herself ; but the man- 
date of generations of Marshalls looked forth from 
Reuben's startled eyes, and echoed in his voice. 

“I guess you'll take that back, Barbara. The pur- 
chase of this piece of land was one of our great- 
grandfather's plans. The whole family has worked 


i68 


THE HOMESTEAD 


for it. Think a minute, and you’ll remember how 
often father talked it over with you. It just com- 
pletes our farm. Why, of course you’ve got to buy 
it.” 

He gathered up the papers, as if there were noth- 
ing more to be said, but also, nevertheless, as if there 
were danger that his impatience might seek a further 
outlet. He pulled his brows together with an effort 
at self-control. 

‘‘Barbara!” She was so mute that she exasperated 
him almost beyond endurance. “You simply must 
brace up and be a woman now!” 

“I am a woman, Reuben.” She knew that it was 
useless to say this, but again she seemed to have no 
choice. She spoke slowly, without looking up, her 
eyes on one of the sea shells that lay on the table be- 
fore her. “A woman who longs to live her life, who 
longs to be free. Oh, Reuben, you take the farm, and 
let me go.” 

For a minute Reuben was silent. Doubtless his 
sufficiently simple and downright nature knew its own 
dubious struggle with complexity at this point. But 
loyalty won out. 

“Not for anything in the world!” he said decid- 
edly. “The farm is yours. Father wanted you to 
have it, and left it to you. Are you going to be faith- 
less?” 

He could not have chosen a better word to leave 
echoing behind him as he turned away. Alone by the 
fire, Barbara tried to stop her ears against it; but it 
hissed and murmured among her thoughts. Faith- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


169 

less! That is the attribute of one who proves false 
to a heritage, false to a trust, who refuses a tradition. 
All her fathers had worked to one end, each of them 
steadfastly receiving and transmitting the same en- 
thusiasm ; and here was she, shrinking and hesitating. 
She got up and tried to sign the papers committing 
her to the purchase of the land; but her hand shook 
from utter weariness, and she availed herself of the 
excuse to wait a while. 

She was still sitting before the fire when, early in 
the afternoon, William dropped in. Priscilla met him 
at the kitchen door. 

“She's in there," she said, jerking her thumb in the 
direction of the closed parlor door. “I don't know 
whether she'll want to see you or not, or whether you 
can get anything out of her. I can't. She ain't had 
no dinner, and she ain't done nothin’ since breakfast 
but set and stare into the fire. I've seen folks in trou- 
ble before, but she don't act natural to me. She must 
have set a store by her father." 

William nodded. He glanced around the kitchen. 
Priscilla had just finished her own dinner. 

“Warm up a little of that soup," he said. “I'll take 
it in to her." 

Barbara drank the soup passively. She said noth- 
ing to William, greeting him only with her gesture of 
tired acquiescence; and he did not bother her with 
question or comment. While she drank he replenished 
the fire and brought in an armful of wood. Then he 
gathered up Reuben’s papers and put them away in a 
drawer of the table. After this, he moved a couple of 


170 


THE HOMESTEAD 


easy-chairs up to the fire. His air was one of prepara- 
tion. For what? Barbara, watching him, wondered 
vaguely, without realizing that her interest was really 
quickened to the point of wonder. Finally, he stopped 
and stood beside her, looking down at her. 

“Daniel Pritchard is coming to see you this after- 
noon,'' he said quietly. 

For the first time that day, Barbara’s eyes bright- 
ened and her eyebrows tried their wings a little. She 
looked as surprised as if she were receiving an en- 
tirely new idea. The truth was that she had quite 
forgotten Daniel; not since the day of her father's 
death had she given him a thought. But, being re- 
minded of him now, she felt a sudden, lifting relief. 
Of course! He was the one she wanted and needed; 
he could take her out of herself, and so give her her 
only chance to rest and begin again. Involuntarily 
she put her hand to her disordered hair, and half rose 
as if she must at once go to her room. Then a bitter 
shadow came over her face, and she sank back again. 

William, watching these eloquent changes in the 
beloved, familiar face, felt his own heart stirred by a 
varied sequence of emotions. He liked her surprise. 
If she had cared deeply for Daniel she could not have 
forgotten him for three whole days. On the other 
hand, her pleasure in remembering him was unmis- 
takable. Well, doubtless, William should like that, 
too, her pleasure being all in all to him; resolutely 
and sturdily he decided to like it. Then her bitter- 
ness arrested him, and turned all his feeling into one 


THE HOMESTEAD 


171 

deep channel of concern. With the sure intuition of 
love he divined her trouble. 

“Barbara, your father sees things differently now,” 
he said, with a voice of authority. “He has lost his 
limitations; he understands. You mustn’t shame him 
by holding him to his old mistakes.” 

Again Barbara’s wide gaze greeted a new idea, 
slowly and wonderingly this time, dwelling upon the 
suggestion with a hesitating relief which dared not let 
itself go. Yet, incomplete as it was, her assuagement 
had depth below depth in it. William had helped her 
more basically than she as yet understood. It was 
with a pardonable feeling of triumph that he went 
away and left her to the other man’s services, which 
without his own prior ministration she would not 
have known how to receive. 

Daniel hesitated a moment as he stood in the door- 
way. Two memories haunted him and made him 
pause to learn his bearings. One was the remembrance 
of his last conversation with Barbara, on the winter 
hillside; the other was of her denial of him on the 
immediate brink of the chasm which had just cleft 
her life. On which side of this chasm would he find 
her now, and how should he meet her most easily? 

Perhaps she read his doubtful plight, her own heart 
teaching her. At any rate, she rescued him, and, by 
her quiet manner, made it clear that she was going to 
ignore the past, and that her present need waited 
wholly on him. His embarrassment dissolved before 
her friendly eyes. 

Before the blazing fire, with the big pink sea-shells 


172 


THE HOMESTEAD 


beside them and with photographs heaping the table 
where Reuben’s papers had recently lain, they spent 
the rest of the afternoon. That is to say, they were 
apparently there, in the shadowy, flame-shot room, in 
the brooding old house, on the lonely mountain side; 
but, in reality, they were straying through Rome. He 
knew exactly where to take her, where to bid her 
pause and sit down, giving herself over to the spell 
of the grand old city. It had often seemed to him 
that Rome might serve as the most reassuring com- 
forter a troubled heart could ask ; and now he found 
that he had been right in this surmise. Watching 
Barbara closely, he saw the lines of her forehead and 
mouth relax as she dwelt on a picture of the Appian 
Way, and heard how long those old stones had been 
a thoroughfare for the flitting generations of men. 

‘‘Nothing lasts very long,” he said gently. “Noth- 
ing matters much.” 

“How peaceful !” Barbara murmured, with her 
quieting eyes drinking in the beauty of the ruin- 
starred Campagna. “It comforts me. I wonder why.” 
She raised her eyes, and returned for a moment to 
her actual environment. “If it’s just the age of it, 
our mountains are a great deal older. The aqueducts 
are shadows compared with the rock in our dooryard.” 

“Oh, yes, but” — he met her eagerly — “the aque- 
ducts are human, and the rock is not. It takes peo- 
ple to help other people. We can’t measure ourselves 
by the seasons or ages. We can’t say, ‘Because Green 
Peak has endured storms, I can endure them.’ But 
we can say, ‘Because other people have suffered,’ ” — ^he 


THE HOMESTEAD 


173 


touched one of the tombs with his pencil — “ ‘I can 
suffer. Because other people have done things/ — 
he indicated an aqueduct — ‘‘ 'I can do things top.^ The 
mountains are cold and impersonal.’’ He glanced 
out of the window, and shivered. They were indeed 
very cold to-day, standing dark and monotonous un- 
der a gray sky. They looked like sulky giants. “But 
people, even the works of dead people, are warm and 
stimulating. One learns more from the Colosseum 
than from any mountain range : more of purpose and 
pity and regret, shame and forgiveness, and other hu- 
man things.” 

“Peace is a human thing, too,” he went on mus- 
ingly. “Mountains can’t be peaceful, for they have 
never known what it means to struggle, they have 
never tried to resist. The Appian Way quiets you 
now because it has resisted a great many times, and 
has always been conquered, and has had to give in. 
Now it gives in of its own accord, and finds that 
therein lies the whole secret of life.” 

“In giving in?” Barbara questioned, still with her 
eyes on the photograph. 

“To one’s destiny,” he replied antiphonally. 

“But what is one’s destiny?” 

She seemed afraid to look up, lest she break the 
old-world spell ; but her eyelids quivered. 

He hesitated and sighed. It was plain that he 
started to say something, then changed his mind. 

“That is a question which every person has to an- 
swer for himself,” he enunciated at length, in the 
voice of a conscientious preacher. 


174 


THE HOMESTEAD 


‘‘Well, it is quite true that it takes a person to help 
a person,” she said, pulling herself away from her 
contemplation of the photographs, and looking up at 
him gratefully and frankly. “You have helped me 
more than you know to-day, and I can’t thank you 
enough.” 

“I wanted to help you.” 

He held her gaze rather wistfully. Was she going 
to let him continue to help her? Yes — bless her! — 
indicating the pictures, she asked, 

“May I keep these to look at to-night? And will 
you bring me some more to-morrow?” 

Late in the evening, when she sat alone in the 
kitchen, Priscilla having taken an apologetic depar- 
ture to bed, she shut her eyes and tried to win her 
difficult way to conscious touch with the spirits of her 
father and mother. It was difficult; she was baffled. 
Silence and unconcern met her groping thoughts. 
Once she spoke half aloud, as if she would force 
Heaven to hear her: 

“I’ll do my best. I promise you that. My very 
best. But I’m not sure yet what that is. Oh, father, 
you must forgive and help me.” 


XVII 


T he winter closed down very suddenly now, and 
shut the homestead in on itself more completely 
than usual. Not in years had the snow been so deep, 
and seldom had the winds howled so furiously. 

Like most country women, Barbara was accustomed 
to house-bound ways in bad weather. Winter was 
always, at best, an irksome season with her; and this 
year she found it almost intolerable. 

She missed her father even more than she had 
missed her mother; for there was no one to take his 
place, as he had taken hers. Moreover, she realized, 
for the first time fully now, what a predominant part 
he had always played in her life. Through his more 
or less unconscious demand and through her willing 
acquiescence, he had swayed and governed her, so 
that she had held her own inner life in abeyance, wait- 
ing on his will. Could she always have stood thus 
attendant on him ? Probably, yes ; for she loved him. 
But her attitude must ever have been more passive 
than active, more negative than positive. The inner 
life can be held indefinitely in abeyance, but it cannot 
be forced into action by any volition other than its 
own. 

Now she felt like a child who has been holding the 
ends of the reins behind its father’s hands, and who 


175 


THE HOMESTEAD 


176 

suddenly finds itself driving alone, with nothing be- 
tween it and the strong horse. She showed her na- 
tive temper by advancing and tightening her grasp. 
She would see that the horse did not run away. But 
what turn she should suggest to it next she had not 
the least idea. 

“Never mind about that,” said the horse knowingly. 
“Fm a well-trained animal. I know the way. Just 
hold the reins, and avoid the rocks and the mud pud- 
dles. I’ll do the rest.” 

This was only too true. A well-ordered life, con- 
sistently and strongly impelled, has a momentum 
which carries far beyond the range of its motive 
power. It was more than Barbara could do at first — 
tired and sad and bewildered — to challenge the fa- 
miliar, continued tendency of her affairs. She could 
only sit tight and hold on. The result was that, before 
she knew it, she had taken several decisive turns. She 
had added eighty-five acres to her farm, and had 
ordered the erection of a barn on the new land. 

William had tried to dissuade her from this. He 
had argued the matter, first with Reuben and then 
with her. But for almost the first time in his ex- 
perience with her, he had found himself impotent. 

“Barbara, wait a while,” he had urged. “The land 
won’t run away. Your chance will be just as good 
next spring. And then you’ll know better what you 
want to do — ^you, you yourself.” 

He stressed and repeated the pronoun, trying to 
make her gather up the reins. But she only looked 
at him passively. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


177 


seems to be the thing to do,” she answered. 

Reuben was scarcely triumphant. He had looked 
on the purchase as so inevitable that he had not en- 
tertained the notion that it might fail to go through. 
When Barbara signed the papers he gave a little mat- 
ter-of-fact nod; then opened the subject of the build- 
ing of the barn. 

It was hard for William to feel impotent where 
Barbara was concerned. The situation more nearly 
disturbed his fundamental patience than any other he 
had ever known. It was not — so he told himself, try- 
ing to reason clearly and honestly — it was not that he 
wanted to sway her, as her father had swayed her, as 
Reuben was now taking his turn at swaying her. He 
wanted to set her free. It was not his fault that the 
effort involved a degree of coercion which her father 
and brother had never had to employ, and that, there- 
fore, his arguments with her had sounded more tyran- 
nical than Reuben’s. Strange that people should be so 
hard to set free! When freedom is the breath of 
life, the only chance for growth. But the perverse 
difficulty connotes all sorts of lovable things in the 
way of loyalty and devotion, and must not be handled 
recklessly. 

He had, finally, no choice but to let her alone. 
After all, how did he know? She stood at the cross- 
ing of equally well-marked highroads. If she chose 
the home thoroughfare, all the better for him! Un- 
less, indeed, she married John Andrews. He was not 
sure that he could bear to have her living, married to 
another man, under his very eyes. But, bear? What 


THE HOMESTEAD 


178 

kind of word was that? He could bear anything. 
So long as she really chose, so long as she deliber- 
ately set her feet in the direction that offered her life 
and happiness. She must not drift around her cor- 
ner. But was she not already drifting? 

‘‘Well, m watch her,'’ he said to himself. “I can 
probably see how the balance tips. And then, if she 
still won’t choose. I’ll choose for her.” 

Meantime, Daniel Pritchard came to the homestead 
constantly. He had sent for a pair of snow-shoes; 
and, in leggins, moccasins and fur jacket, with his 
papers under his arm, he looked like some slim, ra- 
diant Mercury of the winter world. His dark eyes 
glowed, and his bright hair escaped under the rim of 
his close little cap. He sped as if he had wings on his 
feet. No wonder people ran to the windows of the 
various houses he passed. 

But he had eyes for no friendly face, watching and 
wishing, all ready to smile and invite him in. His 
entire concern was for Barbara. He felt as if he 
had found his mission, the end for which he had 
plucked himself from his blissful dreams in Italy and 
had returned to the country of his barren boyhood. 
She was his greater dream, his listener. There was 
no doubt about her need, nor about his capacity to 
meet it. The leap of life into her sober face, when 
she heard his step at the door, was sufficient proof of 
the effect he had upon her. 

He was very happy. He had already surmised that 
it must be much better to share a delight than to 
possess it in the first place, that, in fact, one does not 


THE HOMESTEAD 


179 


fully possess until one shares; but he had not known 
that sharing would bring such revelations. As he 
bent with Barbara over pictures of places long fa- 
miliar to him, and told her what they stood for, what 
sort of impression they made, he often seemed to see 
them for the first time. 

“Look !” he would say. “I never noticed that beau- 
tiful curve. How it takes the sky! And don’t you 
think that a very solemn arch ? I can’t remember that 
I ever saw it before.” 

Sometimes he sat, silently pondering a photograph ; 
and then burst forth with a very different interpre- 
tation from that which he had intended to give. Bar- 
bara inspired him to new insight. 

She looked and listened intently. In this friendly 
companionship and in the touch of the great outer 
world on her cabined soul she found the only relief 
and escape from the brooding trouble of her orphaned 
winter. For several hours each day she not only ig- 
nored her hovering problems, but quite forgot them, 
swept her horizon clear of them. In Italy, Greece, 
and Egypt she found a much simpler self than in 
Vermont. 

Also, as has been hinted, she found an easy and 
sympathetic companion — the only companion by whom 
she now felt entirely undisturbed. Priscilla fretted 
her, Reuben troubled her deeply, and William made 
her aware of a constant scrutiny. It would seem that 
Daniel might have bothered her more than any of 
these, since he had once asked a profoundly disquiet- 
ing thing of her. But he made no reference, by word 


i8o ’ THE HOMESTEAD 

or look, to that afternoon on the hillside before her 
father's death; and she liked him better for his for- 
bearance than if there had been no forborne thing in 
the background of their mutual consciousness. She 
was perfectly human and feminine. It may have been 
that his ignoring piqued her curiosity. Had he for- 
gotten? No; one cannot forget episodes like that, 
even if they prove to be only episodes. Had he 
changed his mind, then? Or was he sparing her out 
of consideration for her preoccupying sorrow? She 
did not put these questions to herself at all analyti- 
cally, for sustained interest in them would have of- 
fended her delicacy; but they were there in the back- 
ground, and doubtless they beckoned her attention 
more often than she knew. 

The result of the interplay of all these forces was 
a quite beautiful friendship. Exquisite elements of 
adjustment swayed and balanced it. The two young 
spirits were attuned to the same interests, the same 
dislikes, the same purposes; similar impulses prompt- 
ed them, kindred reserves held them back. Perhaps 
that is why they remained so cold. The balance may 
have been too perfect. 

It was irot only about Europe that Daniel talked 
with Barbara. He had much to say on the comple- 
mentary subject of his life purpose. 

‘‘You see," he said eagerly, ‘T must try to give as 
much as I get. And what can I better give than the 
very thing I get? I’d like to spend half of every 
year in Europe, gathering pleasure, and the other half 
in Vermont, sharing it." 


THE HOMESTEAD 


i8i 


‘Well, you can, can’t you?” asked Barbara. 

“I hope so,” he nodded. 

“If only” — his face fell, and he smiled a little rue- 
fully — “if only I can make people want to hear me. 
They aren’t all like you.” 

He regarded her with a curious mixture of grati- 
tude and regret which made her laugh. 

“You must practise on us this winter,” she said. 
“Give some more talks in the town hall. Perhaps I 
can help you. The trouble is that you forget how 
little we know, how little you knew, yourself, ten years 
ago. You must talk down to our level — and you must 
let yourself go.” 

“Yes,” ho assented, “I know that. Will you sit in 
the front row where I can watch your eyes?” 

He did give a series of public talks, and they were 
more successful than any he had ever held. Barbara 
criticized them severely beforehand, and made him 
practise them on Priscilla. 

“It will help you more to watch her eyes than 
mine,” she admonished him gaily. “If you can keep 
them open with this description of the vaults of Saint 
Peter’s, I shall miss my guess.” 

So then he revised and enlivened his paragraphs 
until he was rewarded by a steady gaze from the 
eyes of Priscilla. 

William served as practise audience, too. Seeing 
how much Daniel’s visits meant to Barbara, and not- 
ing their frequency, he had made an early winter at- 
tempt to efface himself, and had tried not to come to 
the homestead so often as usual. Perhaps this ef- 


i 82 


THE HOMESTEAD 


fort was not altogether magnanimous and humble. 
He may have wanted to spare himself all superfluous 
pangs of jealousy. But the experiment was not suc- 
cessful. After three consecutive days of avoiding the 
well-worn path to the Marshall farm he had been 
surprised by a visit from Barbara. She had sought 
him out in his corn-house, and had looked at him 
with eyes of concern. 

‘William, is anything the matter? Have you been 
sick? Or your mother?” 

“Why, no, Barbara.” 

For the first time, his eyes avoided hers. 

“But, but — ” she stammered, not embarrassed but 
taken aback and at a loss. “But I haven't seen you 
for three days,” she stated conclusively. 

He did not try to excuse himself. There had never 
been anything but plain dealing between Barbara 
and himself. 

“Do you want me to come?” he inquired, with his 
eyes full on her at last. 

“Why — why, William," she stammered again. “I 
don't know what you mean,” she ended helplessly. 

Just for a moment the Fates that watch our pre- 
carious human destinies, trying out the experiments 
in their huge cauldron, must have held their breath. 
Barbara stood in peril of immediate eclipse in a reso- 
lute masculine embrace that would have upset all her 
maiden equilibrium, all her conception of her life, and 
all the rest of our story. But the ominous moment 
passed, with but a deep breath to mark its significance ; 


THE HOMESTEAD 183 

and, turning back to his work to conceal the sudden 
pallor he felt in his face, William said : 

*1’11 come to-night/’ 

After that, he indulged in no fine-drawn considera- 
tions, no pain-saving devices. She wanted him, need- 
ed him to satisfy some obscure demand of her spirit; 
and she should have him. Was he not utterly hers? 

He grew very expert in watching himself, and very 
nimble in clutching his jealousy before it could slip 
out through some crack in the fortress of self-control 
where he had willed to confine it. He scorned his 
weakness, and cast it into dungeon after dungeon. 
Why could he not, once for all, stifle and crush the 
thing? 

With steady eyes he also# watched the growth of the 
friendship between the boy and girl. This puzzled 
him somewhat. 'Lover himself, he was critically sen- 
sitive to the manifestations of love in other people; 
and the light in Daniel’s eyes did not satisfy him. It 
kindled as readily at a Madonna’s pictured face as at 
Barbara’s living glance. There was something high 
and impersonal in it, like the light of the evening star. 
She, for her part, was as simple and serene as the new 
moon, her spirit’s outline undisturbed by pulsing emo- 
tion. The relation was not what William called love. 
But he admitted that it was beautiful. He felt as if 
he were watching the unfolding of some rare and ex- 
quisite flower, pure white, with no fragrance. Star, 
moon, flower — these white things symbolized the 
friendship. William would have wanted the sun, the 
clasp of the mountains, the rush of the streams, in 


THE HOMESTEAD 


184 

his heart union with his beloved ; and therefore it was 
not altogether a manly courage that enabled him to 
witness the meeting of Daniel’s and Barbara’s eyes. 
Sour grapes are now and then genuinely sour. 

Daniel and Barbara, William and Priscilla, made 
an incongruous but congenial quartette on many a 
winter evening in the kitchen of the homestead; and 
warm and cosy was the look of the little group they 
formed. It would seem that Barbara’s face might 
have lost its somberness. What was the matter with 
her, that her eyes still brooded and were troubled ? 

The old house could have answered that question 
if it had chosen to break its ancient reserve. Immit- 
igably, it saw to it that no group was ever complete 
under its roof without the addition of its own hover- 
ing presence; and it spoiled the harmony of quartette, 
trio, or duet, by playing an unscored part. It had 
never been so alive and alert as it was this winter ; its 
echoing rooms were full of rumor and question and 
challenge. Barbara was half afraid of it. As never 
before, she realized what a dominating influence it 
wielded. Sometimes she fought it. She opened the 
windows and pulled the shades high, inviting the out- 
doors. But one cannot turn a presence out of itself ; 
and the cold winter air only drove the homestead’s 
spirit deeper and further in. A frozen trouble is 
worse than a glowing one. 

Barbara felt herself helpless and dumb. She had 
no words large enough to reply to the racial utterance 
which was ever in her ears. But she understood it 
well enough; she knew what it wanted of her. Her 


THE HOMESTEAD 


185 

father’s voice had gone to swell it now; and his dy- 
ing words epitomized, while they softened, the uni- 
versal demand. *'Be a good girl, Barbara.” Was it 
really good in her to spend her winter evenings over 
pictures of Italy instead of books on agriculture? 

Sometimes she stood in the window, with her back 
to the rumoring house, and looked out over the im- 
passive sweep of the winter landscape. It was very 
beautiful — etched and chiseled silver against a sap- 
phire sky — ^but it w^ lonely and unresponsive. She 
appealed against it in vain. Beyond it lay warm and 
vital cities, full of people whom one might love and 
help, people in whom was the breath of life, the dream, 
the hope, the purpose. She wanted keenly to go to 
them. There lay the chance and the promise. She 
put out her hand and took up a sea-shell, hoping that 
its voice might drown the murmur of the house. But 
the latter was always too much for her, swelling and 
growing behind her; and, in order to escape it, she 
turned back into it, lighting the lamp and stirring the 
fire. 

Morbid? Yes, of course she was that. But she 
could not help it. She was in the throes of a civil war 
of her own life and nature. And her mother’s eyes 
were closed to her in the sleeping garden. 


XVIII 


B arbara was not the only woman in the snow- 
bound valley who suffered that winter. Prob- 
ably, if she could have compared notes with all her 
country sisters, she would have found few who did 
not share her restlessness. But the degree of their 
sympathy would have depended upon the isolation of 
their homes and the size of their families. Married 
women, with many children, might have complained 
most loudly, if they had been consulted. The chil- 
dren were always under your feet; they made such a 
noise you couldn't hear yourself think; the house 
looked like a cyclone; the men folks were dreadfully 
in the^way, sitting around and smoking. But these 
busy women really had the best of the situation; it 
was good for them not to be able to think too much. 
Moreover, their plentiful, ubiquitous audience gave 
them a chance to express their disapproval from time 
to time, and so rid their minds of it. Solitary, inar- 
ticulate women, like Martha Sloan, felt the slow con- 
finement of the weeks most cruelly. 

William was troubled about his mother. She did 
not seem well. She was pale and thin, and ate little, 
subsisting mostly on strong tea. She worked inces- 
santly. Sometimes he suspected her of sweeping the 
entire house in a single day. He remonstrated with 
her, but had to be careful how he did so. 


186 


THE HOMESTEAD 187 

‘‘Mother, the house is as neat as a pin. Why do 
you wear out the carpets and yourself?*’ 

“I guess I know more than you do about what’s 
neat and what isn’t. As for wearin’ out, that’s nearly 
done a’ ready.” 

“I wish you’d have a hired girl. I know one I 
could get to-morrow. She’d save you all the heavy 
work, and be company for you.” 

“Hired girl! When I come to the pass where I 
can’t take care of my own house and where I’m de- 
pendent on strangers for company. I’ll ” 

Martha broke off and turned away, whether because 
she was at a loss for a conclusion, or because she had 
a cake in the oven, or simply because she was impa- 
tient of further discussion, William could not say. 
The last clause of her unfinished speech stabbed him, 
as it was intended to do. He looked after her rue- 
fully. If only she would make it possible for him to 
be a better son ! 

The situation seemed to him hopeless. He had 
tried, and been baffled, and tried again. His most 
carefully planned advances had met with the worst 
repulses. After all, there is such a word as “impos- 
sible” in every dictionary; and, open and endless as, 
for the most part, the roads of life are, there is hardly 
a human experience that does not, somewhere or other, 
run into a blind alley. 

Of course he was not aware of his own masculine 
clumsiness; he did not know that the very conscien- 
tiousness of his filial attempts irritated his mother. 
How could he be conscious of mistakes which he com- 


i88 


THE HOMESTEAD 


mitted with his whole honest heart ? But he knew, on 
general principles, that women are supposed to under- 
stand one another better than men understand them; 
and he certainly felt himself woefully in the dark. 
Therefore, after some hesitation, he took counsel with 
Barbara. 

* wish I could get her to come over and see you,’’ 
he said. “She never goes out; she gets no fresh air 
and no diversion. She’s lonely — ^that’s what’s the 
matter with her. I’m afraid she’ll be sick.” 

Barbara hesitated. She knew what her friend was 
not asking of her. 

“She doesn’t like me, William,” she said deprecat- 
ingly. “I might do her more harm than good.” 

“That’s because she doesn’t know you,” William 
protested. “You’re older now, and you’ve had more 
experience, and you know what loneliness is.” 

That was true. At least, they both thought it was 
true. Barbara glanced at her father’s pipe, and out 
at her mother’s snow-heaped garden, with a pang of 
self-pity. But the older woman, across the fields, 
alone in her cheerless kitchen, might have laughed bit- 
terly if she had heard them. Lonely! That blooming 
girl, with life all before her, with two lovers at her 
side every day, with a bright, cosy environment, re- 
sponsive to her home-making touch! Lonely! She 
could have told them something, if her experience had 
not transcended words. 

Barbara’s heart responded at last. She was too 
generous not to feel the rebound of her pang in com- 
passion for her neighbor. 


THE HOMESTEAD 189 

‘‘ril go to see her this afternoon, William,’^ she 
promised. 

The day could not have been better chosen for a 
mission of comradeship. Loneliness was in its every 
aspect — in the low gray sky, in the gloomy hills, in 
the few wandering flakes of snow, in the chill, damp 
air, not cold enough to be bracing, but very penetrat- 
ing. All the world seemed shut in on itself, brooding 
hopelessly. Barbara shivered and walked fast. She 
could make what haste she would, for William always 
kept a well-trodden path between his house and hers, 
and, knowing that she was coming to-day, he had 
made a special trip with his snow shovel. 

He had not told his mother of the visit in store for 
her. He had been afraid that, thinking about it be- 
forehand, she might perversely decide that it was un- 
welcome, and so find means to avoid it. Neither did 
he let himself claim any share of the friendly errand. 
He hung about the barnyard, watching for Barbara's 
approach ; but, when he saw her coming, he withdrew 
into the stable, and left the field clear. 

That was a mistake on his part, for the girl was 
ill at ease in her mind, and would have been glad of 
a reassuring hand at the gate. She and Martha Sloan 
had never had much to do with each other. Why 
should they? They belonged to different generations, 
and were fundamentally unlike. Even Barbara’s 
mother had failed to make any headway with her un- 
sociable neighbor ; and it was natural that the daugh- 
ter should shrink from the unpromising attempt. 

She paused in the barnyard, and looked about. 


190 THE HOMESTEAD 

searching, listening for William. Then, when she 
caught no sign of him, her heart settled coldly a little 
lower; and she went on across the bleak winter lawn 
to the uninviting house. 

The kitchen door stood a little ajar, as if some one 
had just gone in or come out; and Barbara, pausing 
again on the step, heard a sound of talking. That 
cheered her; she lifted her head, and her face bright- 
ened. William was waiting inside for her; she was 
comforted. But when she did not hear his deep voice, 
replying to his mother, she was again disquieted and 
stood hesitating. What a long speech for Martha to 
make! She was reputed a silent woman. Barbara 
distrusted her ears. To whom was she speaking? 
For several minutes there was not enough of a pause 
in the monotonous sequence of words to give any 
chance for reply. But by and by the broken flow 
ceased ; and then a disconcerting silence set in. What 
could be the matter? Barbara tried to peer around 
the edge of the door and see the occupants of the 
kitchen. A serious subject must be under discussion 
between them, that one of them should have found so 
much to say and the other should have to wait so long 
before formulating an answer. She was unaccount- 
ably loath to enter; she stood irresolute, waiting for 
the second voice in the colloquy. Then, to her dis- 
may, the first voice began again, talking faster, as if 
it had taken fresh hold on its theme; and she realized 
that William’s mother was talking to herself. 

After all, there was nothing so strange in this, no 
real cause for dismay. Many country people talk to 


THE HOMESTEAD 


191 


themselves. Priscilla did, now and then. But the 
cumulative effect of the desolate day, the forbidding 
house, Barbara’s own mood, and the long, aimless so- 
liloquy was disheartening. If the girl had been a 
shade less in earnest, she would have turned away. As 
it was, her lifted hand faltered a little. Then she 
suddenly nerved it, and set it to rapping more lustily 
than was necessary. She did not want to hear any 
more of that one-sided conversation. 

It took Martha so long to come to the door that 
Barbara’s heart had a chance to begin to fail her again. 
What if, after all, there was some one else there? 
Some one who, remaining unheard, wanted also to 

remain unseen ; some one who — some one Bamaby 

Rogers’s imagination was a questionable inheritance. 

‘T don’t want anything.” 

Thus, instinctively, Martha parried, when she saw 
a skirt through the crack of the door and knew that a 
caller (doubtless an agent) was requesting admission. 
But when she came closer and saw who it was, she 
stood astonished. The two women silently stared at 
each other. Their greeting was not propitious. 

“William ain’t here. Don’t know where he is.” 

It was probably in all good faith that Martha of- 
fered this information. She could not suppose that 
Barbara had come to see her, and her mind leaped to 
a natural conclusion. But her voice was hard and 
ungracious. Barbara flushed at it. 

“I know he isn’t,” she replied, with some dignity. 
(“Don’t you suppose I know all about William?” her 
manner implied. “And should I be likely to have oc- 


192 


THE HOMESTEAD 


casion to seek him at your hands?’’) ‘1 came to see 
you,” she enunciated explicitly. 

No, truly, it was not a propitious introduction to a 
friendly call. It was more like a challenge. Martha 
still held the door on the crack, suspicious and defiant. 
But, fortunately, there was something in the bleak 
look of the threshold and in the gaunt face peering 
out that reminded Barbara why she had come and re- 
aroused her compassion. Her young face softened. 

“May I come in? Or are you too busy?” she asked 
disarmingly. 

“Of course I’m busy.” Martha widened the crack 
rather grudgingly. “I’m always busy. But come in.” 

She indicated a chair. 

Barbara sat down. So far, so good! She had not 
been asked to take off her coat, but that omission was 
rather convenient than otherwise in the cheerless room. 
The fire was low in the range, and the gray light 
came coldly through the uncurtained windows. She 
shivered inside her warm wraps. Martha paid no at- 
tention to her, but produced a pan of potatoes, and, 
standing by the sink, began to pare them. Silence 
started in again. 

“Won’t you let me help you?” Barbara asked, after 
a moment, making a doubtful motion as if to pull off 
her mittens. 

“No, thank you.” 

Martha cut her short. 

“You wouldn’t pare them close enough,” she con- 
descended to explain. 

“It’s a horrid day, isn’t it?” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


193 


After another pause Barbara ventured the remark, 
not because it was particularly illuminating, but be- 
cause she must say something ; the silence troubled her. 
The commonplace statement was not so bad, either. 
It might have opened the way for a sympathetic com- 
parison of degrees of loneliness and deprivation, and 
thus two women’s hearts might have been eased. But 
Martha scorned the chance. 

‘T’m too busy to notice the weather,” she said con- 
cisely. 

Yet again silence. Barbara would not have minded 
it so much if it had been an ordinary silence. She was 
not a great talker, and was used to friendly pauses. 
But the voice which she had heard, as she stood out- 
side the kitchen door, haunted her memory; and she 
involuntarily looked on the present hush as a probable 
introduction to another soliloquy. She hazarded an- 
other attempt at an opening wedge. 

^‘William tells me you haven’t been well.” 

As before, the remark seemed innocuous; and cer- 
tainly Barbara meant it kindly. But constraint and 
embarrassment had made her voice a little hard, and 
Martha’s perversity found a chance to quarrel with it. 

‘Tots he knows about it!” she said, without look- 
ing around from her work. “He never sees me ex- 
cept at meal times, an’ not always then. He sees you, 
though, don’t he? He’s got plenty of time to talk 
things over with you, an’ tell you how his mother’s 
failin’ off, how pretty soon she’ll be out of the way. 
Oh, yes, he can notice that I’m lookin’ peaked ; but he 


194 


THE HOMESTEAD 


can’t do nothin’ about it, not he! Tells you I ain’t 
ben well! Not well!” 

This sudden, inconsecutive speech was delivered 
with the speaker’s back to her audience, and so had 
the effect of being precisely what Barbara had dreaded 
— another soliloquy. The tone was the same as that 
which had disquieted the girl before her entrance. 
Broken, monotonous, it went on as if it might never 
stop. 

‘‘No! Please!” 

Barbara’s interruption sprang out of its own accord. 
It really meant, “Please stop t5<lking like that.” But 
she did not consciously give it this significance. Mar- 
tha turned and looked at her. 

“What’s the matter with you ?” she inquired. “Cry- 
in’ out like a baby ! I suppose you’re afraid I’m goin’ 
to go blamin’ William. I can if I want to. I guess 
I’m his mother. I can do what I please. It’s nothin’ 
to you, is it? Tell me, is it? Tell me, what is it to 
you ?” 

Barbara was too disturbed to read the yearning 
interest in this cry, and give it its due. She only felt 
the antagonism. 

“William’s my friend,” she said, because she had to 
say something. 

“Friend!” 

It would have taken an experienced, versatile heart 
to read at a glance all the meaning which Martha 
packed into this word. Scorn, incredulity, wistful- 
ness, wonder, perplexity, indignation, dismay: these 
various elements combined to make a surcharged ex- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


195 


pletive. What a thing was this friendship, this bond 
of the spirit against which the physical, maternal bond 
must pull in vain ! For a minute, her hard blue eyes 
were as complex as her voice. Then she went on : 

‘‘You call it friendship to coax a man away from 
his home and his work, to make him give all his time 
to you? You ought to know that farm work can’t be 
done in fits and starts. He was as steady a boy as 
his father’s son ought to be ; but you, with your whims 
an’ your runnin’s away — oh! many’s the plantin’ day 
you’ve spoiled for him an’ the harvestin’ you’ve in- 
terrupted. I certainly should think you’d be ashamed; 
Fm ashamed for you. An’ now it’s your books an’ 
your pictures. Why can’t you set up an’ go to work ? 
You’ve got a big farm on your hands. You’re a no- 
’count hussy, that’s the truth. I’m ashamed of my son 
that he can’t leave you alone.” 

There was no soliloquy about this speech. It was 
delivered so directly at Barbara that it had the effect 
of a well-aimed volley. Every word hit the mark. 
The girl received it dumbly. She was not used to 
hatred ; and she had not the least idea what to say in 
reply. She should have said something, however. A 
soft answer may turn away wrath, but silence drives 
it back on itself and increases it. 

“Ah-h-h!” 

Perhaps the present pause gave Martha her turn 
at strained attention and baffled expectation. Perhaps 
she felt that she could not stand it and must say some- 
thing to tide it over. At any rate, she opened her 
mouth and made as if she would speak; but only a 


THE HOMESTEAD 


196 

harsh, broken murmur came from her lips. The effect 
was startling. Which pair of eyes inaugurated the 
dismay which both women’s faces reflected, the one 
to the other ? 

Barbara rose. She was not angry; and, later, she 
wondered at herself that she had not been so. The 
obscure appeal in the hard face before her disarmed 
her resentment. But she was too young and too igno- 
rant to know how to meet such a subtle plea; and 
doubtless her very recognition of it was unconscious. 
She thought only of ridding the room of her unwel- 
come presence. 

‘T guess I’d better be going home,” she said, turn- 
ing away. 

William met her at the door, and came in before 
she got out. He had no longer been able to stand the 
uneasiness which had beset him in the barn, goading 
him to come and see with his own eyes how things 
were going. Quickly and anxiously he glanced from 
one woman to the other ; and, for an instant, his face 
reflected the same half- frightened look which was in 
their eyes. Then he pulled himself up and spoke. 
He seemed to feel a resolute, masculine need of deal- 
ing summarily with the silence of the room. 

‘‘Going so soon, Barbara ?” 

His voice rang louder and more cheerfully than 
was characteristic or necessary. He shut the door 
rousingly. Barbara hesitated before him. It was for 
his sake that she had come, and she hated to fail him 
or to come short of his expectation. She searched his 
face. To please him she would have turned back into 


THE HOMESTEAD 


197 

the unhappy room. But Martha gave her. no chance. 

‘'Yes, she’s goin’,” she said from the sink, where 
she had resumed her potatoes. "She can’t stay no 
longer. Better go with her an’ see that she gets home 
safe.” 

"Don’t come, William,” Barbara said, standing out- 
side in the chill winter dusk. "Go back and stay with 
her. She isn’t well. She oughtn’t to be left alone. 
And yet — oh, William! perhaps there isn’t anything 
you can do for her.” 

William felt his own hopelessness echoed in these 
sober words. He felt also a vague new foreboding. 
His face settled into grave lines. 

"I’ll have to do my best Barbara. Thank you for 
coming,” he said. 

Barbara fairly ran back across the fields. The night 
was coming fast, and the mountains had settled into 
a huge gloom. Purple-black, with wan, glimmering 
streaks of snow, they shrugged their shoulders against 
the gray sky and gave themselves over to starless 
dreariness. There was something grand about them, 
looming thus; but there was also something so deso- 
late that Barbara tried not to look at them. They op- 
pressed her intolerably. The few flakes of snow were 
still wandering aimlessly through the air, as if they 
had neither the heart for a purpose nor the patience 
to stay at home. Barbara sympathized with them. 
She secretly congratulated one that fell against her 
cheek, and so found the sure repose of nothingness. 
Oh, the silence ! It filled her brain and kept her anx- 
iously waiting, as if it were the prelude to something. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


198 

To what? To the utterances that lay behind the si- 
lence in Martha Sloan’s kitchen? Perhaps. What- 
ever they were, they were terrible, and she did not 
want to hear them. 

She stumbled in at the homestead gate, trying not 
to look at the house which confronted her. But it 
was as stern as the mountains in commanding her at- 
tention. In spite of herself, she paused a moment and 
looked up at it. Priscilla had gone out this afternoon, 
and there had been no one to light the lamps against 
the invading dusk. Consequently, the dark bulk of 
the house loomed rayless and forbidding beneath its 
leafless, shivering trees. How silent it was, too ! Had 
all the universe gone mad with silence? She dreaded 
to open the kitchen door, lest it should introduce her 
into the waiting hush which Martha’s house had pre- 
served, lest — worse still — the withheld utterance 
should suddenly burst upon her. 

But when she had roused herself to the effort, and 
stood within her threshold, she gave a little sob of 
relief. The room was in shadow, but a warm fire was 
glowing in the stove, and before it sat Daniel, dream- 
ing and waiting. When he heard her he sprang up 
and came forward, his hands outstretched to meet hers 
and then to help her take off her coat. 

'T certainly thought you’d never come!’’ he said. 

With quick movements she lighted the lamp, drew 
the curtains, stirred the fire, pulled forward the sing- 
ing tea-kettle and a savory dish of stew. 

“You must stay to supper,” she cried. “And then, 
afterwards, you must tell me about the busiest, most 


THE HOMESTEAD 


199 


crowded street in the world, the noisiest, the brightest, 
the most solidly built. Put automobiles and hand- 
organs in it, and fire engines and ambulances, and 
shops and churches and hotels, and people, people, 
people. Make it shout and sing ; make it deafen me.” 

‘'All right,” he responded gaily, meeting her mood. 
“Fifth Avenue will do very well; though perhaps 
Sixth would be better because of its Elevated trains. 
Once, when I was crossing Forty-second Street ” 

And he plunged at once into a description. 

Meantime, in the other kitchen, across the fields, 
Martha Sloan was trying to outwit her silence by 
running away from it. She flew from one household 
task to another, sweeping a speckless hearth and dust- 
ing a shining table. The look of dismay did not fade 
from her eyes as it did from Barbara’s. 

William spent the evening at home. He made no 
attempt at conversation ; his many failures in this line 
had discouraged him. But he sat by the lamp in the 
kitchen and read the daily paper. A paper does not 
erect quite such a barrier between the reader and his 
fellowmen as a book. Martha took no advantage, 
however, of his wide, deliberate turnings of sheets and 
his many pauses. She held her peace on her side of 
the lamp, and mended a much-darned table-cloth. 
Peace! What a misnomer! The silence was louder 
with restlessness than a thunder storm. It was a re- 
lief when nine o’clock brought the lighting of the bed- 
room candles. 

“Good-night, mother.” 

“Good-night.” 


200 


THE HOMESTEAD 


The reply was curt and ungracious. 

Many times during the troubled night William stole 
to his mother's door. Once he heard her muttering to 
herself, often he heard her turning uneasily; and he 
knew that her demon of unrest had not let her go. He 
was very anxious and unhappy. Worse than that, he 
was impotent 


XIX 


R euben has not been mentioned as forming one 
of the group -in the kitchen of the homestead 
during the winter evenings; but the truth is that he 
was frequently there — a fifth member, or, according 
to the old house’s calculations, an invaluable sixth. 
When he appeared there was no more question of 
ruins or cathedrals; they were calmly swept from the 
kitchen table and from the field of interest The 
young farmer never apologized for his serene dis- 
placement of them by his agricultural projects. Does 
one apologize for interrupting a meal of crackers and 
jam with an offering of roast beef? He took it for 
granted that William and Barbara would give him 
their full, spontaneous attention. As for Daniel, he 
was extraneous and negligible. ‘‘Good-evening,” and 
later, “Good-night,” marked the usual, perfunctory 
extent of Reuben’s notice of him. 

Daniel did not resent his neglect. Sometimes he 
accepted it as a dismissal, and went away; sometimes 
he lingered on the edge of the little group, haled so 
suddenly from happy roamings through magic lands 
and set down so solidly to a discussion of phosphates 
and manure. He did not pretend to follow their con- 
versation; it did not interest him. But it seemed to 
him only friendly to share Barbara’s disappointment. 
201 


202 


THE HOMESTEAD 


He watched her face, and wished he could spare her, 
wished he could spare them both. 

William, however, did more than wish. He exerted 
himself so intelligently that he shielded and spared the 
girl more than any one dreamed. This was his chance. 
He knew little about palaces and fountains; but he 
knew a good deal about farming; and if he could not 
further the one subject, at least he could deflect and 
monopolize the other. He was very clever in his 
methods. He never spoke for Barbara ; he shaped his 
observations as if he were meeting her on her own 
ground, replying to something she had said or was 
about to say. Even she herself did not realize how 
often he took out of her mouth words which should 
have been there, but for which she would have had a 
pretty search if he had not supplied them. As a mat- 
ter of fact, he was cleverer about this than he need 
have been. Reuben was not observant. So long as 
the talk proceeded briskly and Barbara sat by the 
table, apparently watching his diagrams and noting 
his calculations, he was satisfied. But William liked 
to serve Barbara more completely than was necessary. 

While the long winter held, Reuben’s occasional in- 
terruptions were, therefore, to no one, more than a 
temporary inconvenience, and to William they were 
welcome as an opportunity. The menace in them 
was too remote to be reckoned with. But as the days 
lengthened, and the warm gusts began to wander up 
from the south, a new note of finality crept into the 
brotherly admonitions. One chapter was ending — the 


THE HOMESTEAD 203 

introduction ; and the page was about to be turned to 
the real business of life. 

“Now, Barbara,” he said one evening, early in 
March, when the snow had been dripping all day from 
the eaves, “I think you know pretty well how things 
stand, and what ought to be done first. I can’t think 
of anything more that needs talking over.” 

He sat back in his chair and looked at the orderly 
books and papers strewing the kitchen table (even the 
strewings of Reuben were orderly). His voice and 
manner confessed a certain self-commendation. He 
thought he had done pretty well by his sister ; and in- 
deed he had. Many a man would have grudged and 
withheld all this advice to the inheritor of his own 
patrimonial acres. If his father had not loved Bar- 
bara best, the Marshall farm might have been the 
brother’s. Yes, Reuben was generous. 

Barbara understood this. She roused herself from 
the revery in which she had been plunged, and spoke 
sincerely : 

“Thank you, Reuben, very much. You have been 
kind.” 

“But I can’t help you any more now,” her brother 
continued. “We’re going to have an early spring; 
and in a week or two we’ll both have our hands full 
with sugar making. Then, after that, there’ll be no 
let-up until December. My farm’s almost as big as 
yours. I’m going to engage my sap hands to-morrow, 
and I advise you to do the same.” 

Reuben had no dramatic instinct, and he was in- 
capable of planning a skilful climax. Moreover, from 


204 


THE HOMESTEAD 


his point of view, his last suggestion was only the 
obvious next step in a long, orderly process. Toward 
what other end had he worked through the winter 
with Barbara? But no master of strategy could have 
achieved a neater surprise, could have more cleverly 
landed a bomb at the feet of his listener. To-mor- 
row! Her sap hands! To-morrow! Barbara’s eyes 
grew wide, and she caught her breath. So ! the chal- 
lenge had come to her ; she was in for it. 

William and Daniel both looked at her, as abruptly 
arrested as she was. They understood what had hap- 
pened ; and they, too, held their breath. Only Reuben, 
the precipitator, remained unaware of the tenseness of 
the moment. 

Then, slowly, Barbara put out her hand. Was she 
going to gather the papers, or push them away ? Still 
more slowly, she rose from her chair, and swept them 
into her clasp. 

“All right, Reuben,” she said steadily. “I’ll begin 
to-morrow.” 

Was it only the rising spring wind that sent such a 
long, restful sigh through the house? A coal dropped 
in the kitchen range, and the fire flashed forth a bright 
ray. 

As usual, Barbara kept her word. In fact, she 
anticipated it; for she “began” that evening. When 
Daniel stood up to say good-night, she collected a pile 
of photographs and held them out to him. 

“Oh! but,” he demurred, backing away, with his 
hands behind him, “we haven’t nearly finished with 
them.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


205 

‘*Yes, we have,” she insisted gently. ‘Tlease take 
them.” 

‘‘No, please !” It was an antiphonal chorus of pleas. 
“You can’t do farm work in the evening.” 

“Yes, I can, with my head. Unless Fm too tired. 
And, anyway, that isn’t altogether the point. Don’t 
you see? Don’t you know? Of course you do. Take 
them away.” 

“And must I stop coming to see you ?” 

“Yes. No.” She looked at him with a dubious 
smile. “You can always find me at home in the barn- 
yard or in the sugar bush.” 

There was no deflecting or persuading her. Her 
mouth and her eyebrows had settled into two straight 
lines, and she was resolute. Daniel went away in de- 
jection; but William crossed the fields, trying not to 
pay too much attention to the clamorous hope which 
had suddenly sprung to life again in his heart. 

By the end of the next month the watchful, critical 
country neighbors had to confess that they had never 
seen the Marshall sugar-making more successfully 
carried through. 

“Guess Henry knew what he was about. He un- 
derstood that Barb’ra had good stuff in her, under- 
neath her moonin’ ways. But who else would ’a’ 
thought it? They say she was out in the sugar bush 
all day long, and sat up two or three nights, superin- 
tendin’ the boilin’. Knew just when things went 
wrong, and wa’n’t afraid to say so. Yet didn’t seem 
to vex nobody. She certainly done real well.” 

This praise was merited; though, when it was re- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


^o6 

peated to its object, it did not give all the satisfac- 
tion that might have been expected. Barbara Avas 
surprised — ^and disconcerted — by her own success. 
She did not know how she had achieved it, nor quite 
how the whole circumstance had come about. Look- 
ing back on it at the end of the month — so far as the 
onward push of the succeeding month would let her 
pause to look back — she only knew that something 
had risen up in her on that evening of Reuben’s last 
visit, and had taken command of her. She had not 
expected it, she had not known that she had it in her, 
and she had by no means altogether relished it. But 
she had obeyed it, and under its sway she had worked 
wonders. 

Her men, her sap hands, had begun by smiling and 
shrugging among themselves at the idea of working 
under a woman, especially such a young, inexperienced 
girl. But their condescension had speedily been turned 
into respect. She knew how to let them alone, while 
yet keeping her eye on them. She deferred to them 
as freely as she now and then criticized them. Her 
knowledge surprised them. ‘‘Did Henry teach her, or 
was it just nat’ully born in her? Guess she’s a Mar- 
shall, all right.” Her unexpected prowess was a sub- 
ject of discussion at many a supper table. Success 
and praise are pleasant things. Why did not Bar- 
bara’s face respond to the universal congratulation? 
Why did her eyes remain so sober, as of one who 
stands dispassionately aloof, watching the trend of 
events? 

The reason was, doubtless, that her spirit did stand 


THE HOMESTEAD 


207 


aloof, looking on at the deeds of her body, but not co- 
operating in them. There was a divorce in her na- 
ture, and that is always uncomfortable. Spirit can- 
not be divided. It is as essentially integral as the God 
from whom it springs. But the human nature, ani- 
mated by it, is often complex and fluctuating. Neither 
can spirit be coerced. It is that which it is, which it 
always has been, which it must ever be. When the 
forces of human nature combine to set up a contrary 
tendency, there is often nothing for spirit to do but 
withdraw and wait. It is patient; it knows that eter- 
nity belongs to it. It is also rather proud. 

Barbara missed her spirit She was accustomed to 
its companionship and ministrations. For lack of it, 
even the spring woods, thrilling with hope and prom- 
ise, failed to arouse the usual gladness in her. 

‘'Well,’’ suggested the spirit from beyond the pale, 
“if you turn a horde of noisy men loose in the woods, 
and give all your attention to helping them coin the 
first life of the spring into revenue for you, how can 
you expect the further reward of silence and mystery ? 
The woods ^re not woods to you just at present; they 
are an office building.” 

She shrank from this half apprehended warning. 
She had love(| the woods. Would she never be able 
to go there henceforth without remembering and cal- 
culating yields of maple sugar? 

William watched her zealously. The farmer in him 
made admiring haste to applaud her dexterity. It was 
a pleasure to see work so firmly and skilfully done; 
he appreciated every stroke of her intelligence. The 


2o8 


THE HOMESTEAD 


man, the lover, was proud of her, too. That was the 
woman! He even liked to hear his fellow townsmen 
discussing her. ‘‘Barb'ry Marshall, she’s got the 
stuff!” Yes, that was good to hear. But the friend, 
the brother in William, and so the deeper lover, was 
disturbed by the gravity in the girl’s eyes. She was 
not happy. That spoiled everything. 

He was with her a good deal. His own farm was 
not so big as hers, nor yet as Reuben’s ; and, anyway, 
it has already been seen that? he never hesitated to sac- 
rifice his work to his friend. If she needed him, or he 
thought that he could make her need him, his crops 
might go to destruction. But he was frequently sur- 
prised to find how superfluous was his advice. It was 
sometimes she who suggested new ideas to him. 

‘‘Barbara, where did you learn all these things ?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know.” 

She sighed and passed her hand thoughtfully across 
her forehead. From her expression one might have 
supposed that she was puzzling over some outcropping 
of misfortune. 

Poor Daniel came and went. He could not resist 
the coming; but neither, from another impulse, could 
he presently resist the disappointed going. Barbara 
— when he found her at home — ^was always polite to 
him, even friendly. But she would not let him talk 
about Rome, nor would she share a single one of his 
world-wide interests. He felt not only that he had 
lost her, but sometimes that he had never known her. 
This practical, level-browed, active person was not 
his old dream companion. He missed her sadly. Yet 


THE HOMESTEAD 


209 

it did not seem to occur to him that he might leave 
the valley. 

When the sugaring season was over, the plowing 
followed fast along, then the harrowing and the early 
planting. Barbara managed everything. She sent 
for some agricultural books, to supplement her own 
knowledge and William’s and Reuben’s advice; she 
studied and weighed and experimented ; she took end- 
less pains. She found that Reuben had told the truth 
when he said that, once the farm season had started, 
there was no pause in its work. Up at dawn every 
morning, out all day long, in the fields, in the milk- 
house, in the stable, in the wood-lot, in the pastures, 
in the orchard, everywhere, she was heavily tired at 
night; and only kept herself awake long enough to 
consult her agricultural books and make some notes 
on the day’s experiments. Then she tumbled into bed, 
and slept without dreaming. She no longer got up in 
the night to sit by her window and look out at the 
moonlit meadows. 

One satisfaction, and only one, did she derive from 
her strange new obsession of work, and that was a 
greater friendliness on the part of her home. She 
was generally too busy or tired to think much about 
this; and when she did catch herself noticing it, she 
was apt to deride her own fancifulness. But the 
knowledge was there, in the background of her con- 
sciousness, and it comforted her. 

On the very day after Reuben’s fateful challenge, 
as she returned from engaging the first of her sap 
hands, she suddenly stopped at a turn in the road 


210 


THE HOMESTEAD 


which brought the homestead into view. She had 
often paused here before. There was something ar- 
resting about the look of the old house at this partic- 
ular point. It dominated the hillside, waiting, reserved 
and commanding, under its great trees. It exacted a 
certain toll of respect from every passerby. Usually 
Barbara’s heart had sunk at its grave admonition, and 
she had found it much more forbidding than attrac- 
tive; but to-day she read a new meaning in the lines 
of its roof. Not oppressive, but protective, were they 
— kind, inviting, sheltering. The challenging look 
was gone from the windows, the eaves had ceased to 
frown, the delicate shadows, playing across the front 
door, beckoned her. In a sudden impulse, she ran 
through the gate and laid her cheek against one of the 
porch pillars. Later, she went into her mother's gar- 
den and found a snowdrop in bloom. That was a 
happy day. 

The happiness had not continued, because of the 
divorce in her nature; but the sense of environing 
peace had held good. She was no longer haunted by 
voices and shadows. Because her mind was too 
healthily employed? Perhaps. But now and then, as 
the days lengthened and warmed, and it grew possible 
to sit on the steps in the dusk, underneath the budding 
trees, she was aware of a deep-breathing life, behind 
her, about her, holding her fast, yet paying less atten- 
tion to her than formerly, because it trusted her more. 
Then she closed her ears more firmly than ever against 
the clamoring sea in her breast; and, knowing herself 


THE HOMESTEAD 211 

trusted, she worked harder than ever to justify the 
confidence. 

She gave her whole life to the farm; and, with 
eager, responsive hands, the farm accepted it. But 
her mouth was a hindered bow, and her eyebrows were 
caged wings. 


XX 


O NE afternoon, toward the close of a rainy day, 
she stood by the kitchen window. Uncomfort- 
able as the weather was, she had been out of doors 
all day long, looking after some matters which seemed 
to her to brook no delay. She had been soaked 
through, and her sodden clothes had impeded her 
movements and dragged upon her; so that now she 
was very tired. Her strong, alert young figure had 
a listless droop to it. She stood up only that she might 
the better look out. She wanted to look out. 

Why? She wondered about that, herself. There 
was certainly nothing very congenial in the dripping 
prospect. The earth seemed to have been snatched up 
bodily into the chilly embrace of a cloud, and to have 
lost its identity therein. The shapes of the mountains 
had vanished, even the near meadows appeared as 
mere nebulous glimpses, hints of plashy dreariness. 
There was nothing to be seen but blank gray mist. 
Why should any one want to look out ? 

Behind her, on the other hand, the old house was 
at its best. The fire glowed warmly in the kitchen 
stove, the kettle sang softly, preparing and yet reserv- 
ing itself against the evening meal, the clock ticked 
gravely, the shadows crept with restful, tender, benefi- 
cent touches. All was well within. 


212 


THE HOMESTEAD 


213 


Why did she not sink back into her home? It in- 
vited her; she could feel its coaxing caress almost 
tangibly upon her. Once or twice she glanced back 
over her shoulder ; but then she gave an unaccountable 
shrug with that same member, and returned to her 
contemplation. 

Oh, how dreary everything was! The northern 
New England spring, having started in fairly enough 
some two months ago, had lately been indulging in its 
traditional privilege of relapse and delay. It had 
sulked, it had shivered, it had turned on itself and 
broken faith with its buds by untimely frosts. With 
all her lifelong experience, Barbara had never learned 
to accept this perversity of the seasons as part of the 
natural order of things. It vexed her absurdly. She 
wanted to chide it, to reason with it. Now, this year, 
when she was engaged in active cooperation with it, 
it annoyed her exceedingly. How could she cooper- 
ate with anything that wais so unreliable? Look at 
those meadows I They had awakened weeks ago, and 
they were not green yet. The crests of the mountains, 
behind the clouds, were as bare as in January. Earlier 
in the day a little damp snow had fallen with the May 
rain. 

Her father had liked this uncertainty in the forces 
with which he dealt, or which dealt with him. She 
remembered that he had commended to her the ex- 
citement of ‘‘gambling with the weather.'' Why did 
she not like it, she wondered, as she stood with her 
forehead against the window frame, soberly gazing 
into the depressing mist? Was she not as brave, as 


214 


THE HOMESTEAD 


high-hearted as he? Perhaps not. And yet she 
thought that she had it in her to be. If only — ! But 
here she caught herself up, aware that she was in- 
dulging in dangerous personal questions, trembling on 
the brink of the hidden sea which she had denied ; and 
was about to turn back into the kitchen, when she saw 
Daniel Pritchard enter the gate. 

In an instant, before she knew what she was doing, 
she had the door open and was standing on the thresh- 
old, her face full of welcome. She had not seen 
him in many days, and he was good to see. Her ac- 
tion was so instinctive that she did not notice how an 
inner door swung open too, and how her banished 
spirit stole across a mental threshold. 

But Daniel noticed. He had not come to the home- 
stead lately, because he had all but accepted the fact 
that Barbara was lost to him. She certainly had not 
wanted him, and the temper of her mind had been so 
different from what it used to be that he had lost the 
sense of kinship with her. He had come to-day chief- 
ly that he might tell her of his intention of sailing for 
Italy in a few weeks. 

But the minute he saw her his heart leaped; and 
he stood transfixed, gazing at her. His listener? Had 
he found her again? He could hardly believe his 
eyes. He forgot all about the errand which had 
brought him, and his face kindled dreams from hers. 

‘'Come in,'* she said gently. “Pm glad to see you. 
Won't you take off your wet coat? I — " she glanced 
back into the shadowy room behind her, and shivered 
inexplicably. “Come, let’s light the lamp and have 


THE HOMESTEAD 215 

supper; then we can talk/^ she finished, with a swift 
gathering up of the reins of a new mood. 

Daniel had not known Barbara long enough to grow 
accustomed to the speed of her mental processes ; and 
he was bewildered by her present precipitancy. But 
he lost no further time in obeying her invitation and 
entering the room. As she lighted the lamp and 
stirred the fire, summoning the kitchen from its re- 
pose, he silently took oflF his coat and made himself at 
home. He caught himself wondering if the old house 
liked the sudden breaking up of its twilight mood. It 
seemed to him that he detected a lowering sort of hos- 
tility in the shadows which, refusing entire submission 
to Barbara's mandate, retreated to nooks and comers 
and bided their time. The place did not seem to him 
as benignant as it had seemed to Barbara ten minutes 
before. However — ! He roused himself from his 
wonderment, put his perplexity aside, and concerned 
himself only with the realization that, miraculously, 
out of the monotonous, alien days, his friend had re- 
turned to him, that she was with him now, that this 
was his hour. 

‘‘No,’^ he replied to her flying question — ‘‘Are you 
very hungry ?” 

“Well, I am,** she parried, laughingly; “but not 
with my mouth.** 

Accordingly, it was a simple supper that, in a few 
minutes, lay on the table. But, even so, Priscilla had 
to eat most of it. 

Then, when the few dishes had been washed and put 
away, and the room was in order, Barbara drew 


2i6 


THE HOMESTEAD 


her chair up beside the table with a happy gesture. 

“Now!” she said in a tone of embarking. “I hope 
you brought some pictures with you.” 

“Alas I” He hated to fail her at the very outset; his 
voice was full of regret. “Only a few post cards. 
You see, the last time ” He hesitated. 

“Yes.” She accepted the unphrased apology, and 
put it aside, frowning a little. “Let me see them.” 
She held out her hand. 

“I could go to my room and back in half an hour,” 
he suggested. 

But that was a false touch. He might have known 
it. She admonished him — 

“Oh, no!” 

Nothing must be allowed to risk the breaking of 
the spell which bound them. 

Then he had an inspiration. It was nothing less 
than that. He drew a pencil from his pocket, and, on 
a stray sheet of paper, began sketching Old World 
scenes from memory. 

He had never done this before. He had not really 
known that he could do it. But, as a boy, he had had 
a knack with his pencil; and one winter in Paris he 
had spent a few desultory hours in a studio. The 
present result was crude enough. No artist would 
have cared to look twice at the highly experimental 
sketches he produced. But they were suggestive ; and, 
above all qualifications, they were nicely adapted to 
his audience. Barbara found them stimulating. Her 
quick, sympathetic imagination leaped to supply their 
deficiencies and to interpret their meaning. She hung 


THE HOMESTEAD 


217 

over them, eagerly watching their development, from, 
the first apparently random strokes to the final setting 
of street or city wall. 

If they were stimulating to her, what was her cre- 
ative presence to the wielder of the pencil ? She had, 
before, quickened him to discover aspects in his pho- 
tographs which had gone unnoticed; and now she 
sharpened his inner eye to remember and visualize. 

‘'Oh, yes! Of course! I had quite forgotten,’^ he 
said again and again, as he bent over his paper, eras- 
ing, re-shaping, hurrying to capture a glimpse of lurk- 
ing beauty. He had never before so consciously, act- 
ively entered into the soul of his subject as in this 
attempt to recreate it for Barbara by his own effort. 

As he drew, he talked. His words kept pace with 
his pencil, hesitating and stumbling when the latter 
was at a loss, groping now and then, but, in the end, 
always flowing freely. The result ot the incomplete 
process was a peculiarly intimate vividness. Barbara 
felt that she stood in the very presence of the remote 
towers and churches. As soon as a sketch was fin- 
ished, both fashioner and watcher drew back, lifting 
their flushed young faces; and, holding it off before 
them, gave themselves over to its contemplation. It 
was during this final scrutiny that Daniel’s words 
found their freest vent. They came like a torrent, 
surrounding and lifting Barbara’s spirit, bearing it on 
irresistibly to its forbidden sea. She listened — ^to vary 
the simile — like a thirsty soul that drinks. 

She had not realized how thirsty she had been. Nor 
did she fully realize it now. Her past pain was swal- 


2i8 


THE HOMESTEAD 


lowed up in the fulness of her present recompense. 
In her joy over the object she lost all track of herself 
as the subject; she was entirely handed over to the 
glory of life. Life — that was it: dear, beautiful life; 
life that could interest, claim, absorb; the life of the 
spirit as contrasted with the life of the earth and the 
body. She was so happy that her cheeks glowed, her 
brows spread exultant wings, and her eyes shone like 
stars. 

William stood a long time unnoticed, when he pre- 
sented himself in the doorway behind the little group. 
Perhaps he was not instinctively gratified by his neg- 
lect, but his philosophy knew how to turn it to good 
account. With one hand on the half -open door and 
one foot on the step, he waited, not daring to move 
lest he break the spell that obtained within, and thus 
curtail his opportunity. It was long since he had had 
his object of objects, his Barbara, so completely at 
the mercy of his eyes. He had seen her mask every 
day for the last eight or nine weeks; but here at last 
was her living self again. 

Was he glad to see her? His honest face acknowl- 
edged a conflict of feelings. He could hardly fail to 
rejoice at the glow that irradiated her features, the 
vital satisfaction that shone in her eyes. Any true 
lover must welcome joy in his beloved. But he would 
not have been human if he had felt no pang at the 
cause of the change in her. His glance swept the 
kitchen table, strewn with sketches; and, in spite of 
himself, his brows contracted. He stifled a sigh. Then 
he turned his attention to Daniel; and, for several 


THE HOMESTEAD 


219 


minutes, studied the young man’s face with keen con- 
centration. The challenge in his eyes might well have 
proved disconcerting to any one aware of it. 

Daniel was at his best that evening. He was as 
thoroughly alive and awake as was Barbara. His eyes 
glowed darkly, and shade after shade of feeling chased 
across his expressive features. His bright hair tum- 
bled confusedly about his forehead, and now and then 
he shook it back impatiently. He and his companion 
were like two flames, burning side by side, leaning to 
each other. Once he looked so long into her eyes, 
pondering some suggestion there, that William winced 
in the doorway. But then he seized a fresh piece of 
paper, and devoted himself to the silent elaboration of 
a sketch; and, at this consummation, the older man 
smiled, shook his head, and bit his lip. Not for 
sketches did he look into Barbara’s eyes. 

Toward whatever conclusions he was advancing 
when his observations were cut short, it was evident 
that he did not altogether like the trend of his mental 
processes. His kind eyes were puzzled and troubled; 
his forehead looked ill at ease. 

It was Priscilla who saw him first. She had not 
found herself particularly interested in the evening’s 
occupation, and had gone to sleep in a corner. Wak- 
ing, she discovered the silent figure standing in the 
doorway. 

‘Why, William Sloan!” 

But, at the first sound of his name, Barbara sprang 
from her chair and came running to him. She sur- 
prised him so by this movement that for a minute he 


220 


THE HOMESTEAD 


felt himself taken quite aback. She had seemed so 
wholly committed to the subject she had in hand that 
he would have thought she could hardly have focused 
her gaze on him without a pause for recollection and 
readjustment. And, indeed, he was not sure that she 
saw him now. Her expression was dazed, as if the 
rush of cities and seas to get out of the way of her 
headlong return blinded her vision. When she came 
impetuously up against him he held her off at arm^s 
length and watched the collapse of domes and towers 
and city walls in her vivid face. He had never had 
such a strange impression. If he had not been coun- 
try born and bred he might have been reminded of the 
toppling of Walhalla at the close of the Gotterdam- 
merung. As it was, he stood thrilled and arrested. He 
had supposed that he knew all the moods which Bar- 
bara’s spirit had ever donned; but he had never be- 
fore seen her look like this. The strange experience 
ended in his taking his turn at becoming dazed and 
blinded as her vision cleared. 

But her return to full consciousness of her sur- 
roundings produced another change of mood in her. 
The light died out of her face, as she slowly gathered 
herself together, removed her hands from William’s, 
and looked about the walls of the shadowy kitchen. 

“Oh, dear!” she said, half aloud; and the innocu- 
ous little expression was sharpened into significance 
by the troubled glance and the sigh that accompanied 
it. She turned back toward the kitchen table, and 
stood silently looking down at the papers that cov- 
ered it. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


221 


Daniel had been in the midst of a sketch when 
Barbara had sprung up to welcome William, and he 
had not allowed his attention to be deflected by the 
arrival. The spell of the evening still held good with 
him. Conscious of his companion's return to his side, 
he pushed his paper toward her, and, with unlifted 
eyes, went on completing his drawing, while he began 
to talk. 

‘‘You see, the road runs here," he said. 

But then he looked up sharply. Something in Bar- 
bara's motionless silence pricked his ignorance. 

Alas ! she was as suddenly, utterly gone as she had 
come to him. Her face had folded its wings, her eyes 
were as remote and unresponsive as two inaccessible 
wells. He dropped his pencil. He stared at her. 
Then he looked across at William. The reason of her 
return to him was shrouded in mystery, but the rea- 
son of her renewed departure was all too obvious. 
Even the gentle Daniel felt a prompting to indignation. 

“I'm sorry I interrupted," said William, stumbling 
awkwardly in the meshes of his own emotion and of 
the subtle, only half -apprehended complexities of the 
situation. “I’ll go away.” 

“No, please, William.” Barbara's level voice ar- 
rested his retreat. “I'm glad you came in. I've been 
wanting to consult you about the spraying of my apple 
trees." 


XXI 


D uring the summer weeks which followed, Wil- 
liam’s fundamental patience was taxed to the 
utmost. He knew that there is nothing to be done with 
the processes of life — ^physical, mental, and spiritual — 
but let them work themselves out ; that the more com- 
plex and important they are, the longer they take and 
the more dangerous it is to meddle with them; that 
their unity of purpose is not incompatible with a good 
many shif tings and delays. But it sometimes seemed 
to him that he could no longer stand the hesitations 
and contradictions of Barbara’s destiny. 

After the May evening of her relapse into vaga- 
bondage with Daniel she devoted herself to the farm 
more strenuously than ever. This was partly, of 
course, because the stress of the advancing season 
caught her and hurried her into task after task which 
she could hardly avoid. But there was more than ne- 
cessity in her unremitting attention. Once or twice 
her watchful friend thought that he had reason to sus- 
pect her of doing things which she knew might just 
as well be left until another year. Then he thought of 
his mother, sweeping and re-sweeping the kitchen, 
and a pang clutched his heart. There was, alas! no 
longer much hesitation and doubt about Martha’s 
destiny. 


222 


THE HOMESTEAD 


223 


Daniel did not sail for Italy. On the contrary, he 
lost not a mail in returning his steamer ticket. It 
must be confessed that he looked at it for a long min- 
ute or two before he finally slipped it into its en- 
velope; the hunger for the Roman Campagna had been 
especially strong with him of late. But the result was 
the same as if he had rushed to the Post Office before 
breakfast; and, having despatched his countermanding 
letter, he at once set out for the homestead — ^where he 
did not find Barbara. The rest of the early summer 
weeks he devoted to a rather fruitless haunting of the 
hillside. 

The township had plenty to talk of that summer. 
Would Martha Sloan become dangerous? Oughtn't 
William to set some guard upon her? Would Barb’ry 
Marshall take up with the young lecturer who was 
always bangin' around her ? And what would happen 
then ? But the last question was never discussed very 
seriously, for no one thought that Barbara would 
really marry Daniel. She was too successful with her 
farm, too evidently engrossed in it ; “she had too much 
sense." 

Even Reuben remained undisturbed by Daniel’s 
comings and goings. He had to admit to his wife that 
there was only one interpretation to put upon them; 
but so was there only one natural conclusion to draw 
from Barbara's indifference. 

“She don't care for him. More'n half the time she 
ain't home when he calls; so his goin' so often don't 
count for as much as it seems to. And, when he does 
find her, she ain’t very nice to him. For my part, I 


224 


THE HOMESTEAD 


wonder that he keeps on goin\ I guess he’ll tire soon. 
Barbara ain’t nearly so pretty as she used to be. And 
she’s growin’ obstinate, sot in her ways, a lot like her 
father. I couldn’t do nothin’ with her about those po- 
tatoes.” 

These last sorry statements were all too true. Bar- 
bara was not so pretty as she used to be, and her man- 
ner had hardened. Her joyless success had developed 
in her a determined self-sufficiency which was far 
from gracious. She did not like her work well enough 
to want to discuss it with other people, as her father — 
while still holding to his own way — had been pleased 
to do. So that, once having acquired self-confidence, 
she made her own plans and carried them out, and 
there was an end to them. William soon learned to let 
her alone; but Reuben had no intention of refraining 
from whatever advice or criticism seemed to him de- 
sirable. The consequence was that the brother and 
sister bickered a great deal. William mourned over 
all these things. Harder than his poor mother’s aber- 
ration, harder than any other trial which life had ex- 
acted of him, was the knowledge of the warping of 
Barbara’s fine spirit. She was meant to be loving and 
sweet and joyous; and circumstance was forcing her 
into an imhappy mold. He often wondered how 
long he would be able to stand it. 

Daniel might well have been pardoned if he had 
put the same wonderment to himself — though with a 
different outcome to the end of his endurance. Bar- 
bara baffled him relentlessly; and he found himself 
continually affronted in that which, he had thought to 


THE HOMESTEAD 


22S 


hold most high and sacred. He was too sincere to be 
very proud ; but he was sensitive, and he shrank from 
the rude ignoring of his vision. Perhaps, after all, 
he had better go away and keep it to himself. 

Nevertheless, it was William who first came to the 
end of his rope. 

“Barbara,” he said one July morning, coming 
around the corner of the bam, just as Pete was being 
hitched into a farm wagon, “ifs such a nice day, I 
want you to come and take a walk with me.” 

Barbara had not glanced up as she heard the ap- 
proaching footsteps ; she was wholly preoccupied with 
the task in hand and with the thought of the many 
duties which the day held in store for her. But the 
abrupt and unexpected nature of William's request 
was calculated to startle her, and it did not fail to * 
do so. 

“What?” She paused with her fingers on a strap. 
“What did you say?” she repeated. 

“I said” — William took hold of another strap and 
began to unbuckle it — “let's take a walk.” 

Barbara looked quite at a loss. Take a walk at nine 
o'clock in the morning of a hay-making day! Had 
William lost his wits? Her bewildered concern gave 
an effective jar to her recent self-control, and loosened 
it. But she recovered it almost at once. 

“Don't be absurd, William,” she replied, fastening 
her strap and reaching for another. 

“I'm not absurd ; I mean it,” he insisted, buckle for 
buckle unharnessing Pete on his side as fast as she 
secured him on the other. “Let’s take a walk,” 


226 


THE HOMESTEAD 


Barbara came to a full stop, and looked across the 
horse’s back at her friend, who promptly profited by 
his chance to remove the headstall. 

‘‘William ! Don’t !” she expostulated. “Why — ^why 
• — ^what is the matter with you? You know I can’t 
leave my work to-day. It’s hay time.” 

“Hang your work ! Hang hay time !” said William 
cheerfully. 

Pete was out of the shafts by this time, and on his 
no less cheerful way back to his stall. Barbara looked 
dazedly after him, her face visited by a conflict of 
feelings such as had not quickened it in a long time. 
She was vexed, she was puzzled, she was impatient; 
but at least she was alive and awake. William, glanc- 
ing back at her, was not discontented with the effect 
he had begun to produce. Also, the eternal feminine 
in her was secretly pleased with the high-handed deal- 
ing. But William did not know that. 

“It’s a lovely day,” he remarked again, as he closed 
the bam door and came back to her. “Shall we climb 
Spruce Hill?” 

He smiled rally ingly into her face, summoning her 
to come out and meet him, to be his friend and com- 
rade once more, to be herself with him. She did not 
smile back, but she took off her heavy driving gloves 
and laid them aside. 

“I don’t know what is the matter with you,” she re- 
peated mechanically. 

“Matter? I tell you, it’s a lovely day,” he reiter- 
ated, closing the barnyard gate behind them and lead- 


THE HOMESTEAD 227 

ing the way across the brook. actually don’t be- 
lieve you know that,” he challenged her. 

‘1— why, is it?” 

She followed along a few steps, then stopped, looked 
about her, and shook her head. 

“William, really I can’t,” she said. “I’m going 
back.” 

“Barbara, please!” 

He did not often deliberately pit his will against 
hers; but he did so now, earnestly facing her, half 
commanding, half coaxing her. She met his eyes, and 
hesitated. For a minute the balance hung. Then, 
“Very well,” she said wearily, and once more fol- 
lowed him. 

“So you didn’t know it was a lovely day,” he con- 
tinued, persistently reintroducing the weather as if it 
were a neglected guest. 

“Good for hay making,” she answered, with a 
glance at her waving meadows. 

“Good for hay, good for spirit,” he met her. 
“Which is the more important?” 

He spoke lightly enough, but she took his question 
quite seriously, and pondered it. 

“Well, of course, I always used to think that spirit 
was,” she replied at length ; “but now I honestly think 
it’s hay. Spirit can wait.” 

“Barbara!” Her tone of mature conviction dis- 
couraged him ; but he continued to rally her. “You 
know you don’t mean that. Spirit can go to seed as 
well as hay. When it’s ripe it must be gathered. I’ve 


228 THE HOMESTEAD 

got a fine crop of ideas to-day that can't wait another 
hour." 

A certain stress in his voice caught her attention and 
roused her curiosity. 

‘‘What kind of ideas?" she questioned. 

But, as she spoke, her eyes wandered anxiously over 
a field of timothy, and she ignored the answer. 

“You'll see in a minute." 

William turned short away from the meadows to- 
ward a high, rocky pasture, and hastened to put the 
Marshall farm behind a, fold of the hill. 

“Now! do you want to sit down? Are you tired?" 
he said, indicating a shady rock, when he thought they 
had walked far enough. 

“Yes, I am, rather." 

Barbara sat down on the grass and folded her 
hands in her lap, leaning back against the rock. Her 
face fell into listless lines, and she regarded the ra- 
diant summer world around her as if she had once 
more forgotten that the day was beautiful. William 
let her alone for some minutes. She seemed to him 
really very tired ; and he wanted to give her a chance 
to find her old self again. He did not need a chance 
to watch her, for he already knew by heart the un- 
happy set of her lips and the constraint of her brows ; 
but, having her there before him, he had no choice but 
to study her, and his heart yearned over her. Once 
more he addressed himself to the wholesome device 
of startling her. 

“Barbara," he said, without preamble, “I had a spe- 
cial reason for asking you to come out with me to-day. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


229 

I am commissioned to make you an offer for the pur- 
chase of your farm/’ 

Startled, was she? For a moment he thought he 
had gone too far in abruptness, and shocked her dis- 
astrously. She gazed at him with her eyes as wide 
as the spaces between the summer clouds. ‘What? — 
what did you say?” she murmured vaguely. She was 
petrified. But, before he could repeat his statement 
in dr gentler form, she startled him in his turn by 
springing suddenly to her feet. 

“William 1 Sell the farm!” she cried; and gave a 
choking little gasp that started out to be a shout, but 
found its freight of feeling too much for it. 

Now William had had two motives in wishing to 
startle Barbara. One was that he might shake her 
out of her constraint; the other that he might entrap 
her into revealing her genuine feeling about the home- 
stead. He thought he knew it pretty well, but he 
wanted to make sure. His success dazzled him. No 
lightning stroke ever made an obscure path clearer. 
From henceforth, forever, there was no doubt: she 
must be set free. 

But it was well that he had used his abrupt method ; 
for, no sooner had she sprung and cried, than she sat 
down again, folded her hands, and said, 

“William, really what ts the matter with you to- 
day? You do make the most absurd suggestions.” 

She herself seemed to be hardly aware of her own 
leaping confession. 

“It’s a man from the city,” William went on, quietly 
ignoring her last remark. “He’s got lots of money. 


230 


THE HOMESTEAD 


He offers you twenty thousand. I’d take it if I were 
you. He’s a thoroughly nice man, Barbara. The 
homestead couldn’t fall into better hands. He’s got 
a wife and three or four children, and he wants to 
make a home in the country. He’s retired from busi- 
ness. He seems to have all sorts of modern ideas 
about scientific farming ; and, with the money to carry 
them out, he’ll do better by the place than you ever 
could. He likes the old house immensely. If you 
hadn’t been so busy lately you’d have noticed him 
hanging around. He’s boarding in the village, and he 
comes up here almost every day. He told me he’d 
never seen a house that had so much personality. 
He’ll keep it looking just as it is — only perhaps a 
little more cheerful — and he’ll develop the farm in a 
line with your father’s theories. Do let him have it, 
Barbara. It’s a chance in a lifetime.” 

Barbara listened passively to this speech, making no 
comment with voice or eye. William was glad that, 
at least, a reaction did not lead her to repudiate the 
new idea as vigorously as she had at first so spon- 
taneously embraced it. When he stopped and left his 
words to sink in, she sat silently, with her hands 
clasped about her knees. He waited anxiously. 

‘‘So you think that the house isn’t cheerful?” she 
said at length, woman-like, choosing his parenthesis 
for her point of reply. Perhaps she thought that the 
other points were too much for her. 

“Well — ” he hesitated. “Do you?” he submitted 
finally. 

“No — ” she shook her head without looking at him* 


THE HOMESTEAD 


231 

her face impassive. ‘‘I think it’s hateful ; but I didn’t 
know that any one else thought so too. How long 
have you thought so, William?” 

“Why, more or less always, I guess.” 

He spoke judicially. 

She did look at him then, her eyes full of surprise 
and a curious mingling of pain and relief. 

“Really?” 

“Always, at least,” he went on, “since you began 
to grow up in it, and I saw what a misfit it was. You 
don’t belong there. It isn’t your home. You don’t 
love it, and it doesn’t love you. So of course ” 

But at last he had gone too far and spoken too 
baldly. Barbara interrupted him. 

“Why, William, I do! I do!” she expostulated. 

It was a bewildering protest, coming on top of the 
so recent confession of the homestead’s hatefulness; 
but William seemed to understand it. He sighed and 
made no comment. The reaction had come. 

“It is my home, and I do belong there,” Barbara 
went on indignantly. “I was born there; I’ve never 
lived anywhere else. What do you mean?” 

“ ‘The Soul that rises with us, our lifers Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar,'” 

William quoted thoughtfully. “I think your grand- 
father brought your soul with him from overseas, and 
that’s where you belong.” 

At the mention of her grandfather, Barbara’s hand 
went as usual to the compass about her neck ; but her 
mood did not suffer change. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


232 

“Fm a Marshall, my father and mother were Mar- 
shalls,’^ she continued; ‘‘and I love them both. Of 
course I love the home which was theirs, which they 
left me. My mother’s garden is rooted there. How 
can you talk to me of selling it? It’s impossible.” 

“Nothing is impossible which one ought to do.” 

He was skilful in surprising her to-day, and so in 
checking her. 

^‘Ought to do?” 

She looked at him from under puzzled brows. 

“Ought ; yes, of course. Our spiritual duties are 
always more important than our physical ones; and 
the first of them is to be true to ourselves. You were 
born with rivers and seas in your blood, and you’ll 
never amount to anything until you give them a 
chance.” 

“But — ^but — my father.” 

“He’s dead now. He lived his life. He was true 
to himself. I rather think he was! You’ve no right 
to live his life over again. That’s been done once 
for all. The world doesn’t want stale repetitions, but 
fresh experiments.” 

“Reuben — the homestead — my mother’s garden.” 

Barbara offered the disconnected words as if each 
was a complete argument. She looked deeply trou- 
bled. 

“Nothing to the point, any of them. They don’t 
really need you. And, anyway, it isn’t yourself you’re 
giving them, for you are not yourself. Don’t insult 
them any longer by forcing a falsehood on them. Be 
yourself bravely, and give ” 


THE HOMESTEAD 


233 


But here William took his turn at breaking off sud- 
denly in confusion. He had spoken with headlong 
energy, and had not perceived where he was coming 
out. To whom was Barbara to give herself when she 
had found herself? One obvious name sprang into 
both their minds. They read it, reflected in each 
other's eyes, and flushed reciprocally. Then the trust 
that always obtained between them prevailed to re- 
store their balance. 

‘Well," said Barbara, “well " She rose, evi- 

dently averse to pursuing the subject further. She 
gathered herself together with an effect of recovery 
and return. Her face had the look of one who wakes 
from a dream. “Really, William, I must go back." 
She turned away down the hill. 

But she did not hurry, as she and William re-crossed 
the pasture and skirted the brook. On the contrary, 
she loitered so absent-mindedly that her friend, watch- 
ing her, thought that she must be pondering his coun- 
sel. At the conviction his heart sank so low that he 
could hardly hear the sturdy “Hurrah!" which he 
authorized it to give. He had no misgivings, no 
doubts, no regrets. He knew that Barbara must yield 
her farm ; he would do anything to help her to do so. 
But there was no blinking the desolation which the 
result would mean for him. 

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not 
notice what progress their returning feet made over 
the pasture; and when Barbara stopped beside him 
he looked up inquiringly to see what had arrested her. 
They had topped the crest of a little ridge on the 


234 


THE HOMESTEAD 


rolling hillside, and Marshall Hollow had come into 
view beneath them. The buildings and fields of the 
Marshall farm lay at their feet. The old house stood 
with its back to them, paying no more heed to them 
than to the hawk that circled above the hill. It was 
intent on the meadow before it, where, in spite of the 
mistress’s absence, the hay making was going for- 
ward. Watchful, alert, it stood under its trees, losing 
no turn of the reaping machine, commanding the 
whole situation. But, though it ignored the two on 
the hill, its command included them; and its preoccu- 
pied back rebuked them more impressively than its 
full face could have done. William had no need to 
ask Barbara why she had paused, nor to wonder what 
change had come over her spirit as she stood long at 
gaze. He anticipated the words with which she finally 
turned to him : 

“William, you must tell the man from the city that 
my farm is not for sale.” 

He left her at the kitchen door, and, without fur- 
ther comment, went away over the fields toward his 
home. At a bend in the path he turned and looked 
back. The homestead still paid no attention to him. 
Gazing obliquely away from him, it continued to con- 
template the mown meadow where the noon hour had 
now brought respite from labor. But, as on the hill- 
side, an hour ago, there was something worse than 
attention in its insulting neglect. 

“Curse you !” said William, under his breath. Then, 
aloud, that there be no misunderstanding, “Curse you, 
old hag!” 


XXII 


D aniel remembered enough about farming to 
understand that late summer permits a slack- 
ening of the pace at which work is done; and he 
looked forward to August with a renewal of hope. 
Surely as soon as Barbara’s hands were a little less 
full and her mind had a chance to look beyond imme- 
diately pressing demands, she would again find time 
for him and their friendship, she would relent towards 
him. The very mood of the maturing season is quiet- 
ing to sensitive souls. She must be affected by it. 
When, therefore, the hay was all in and the early 
potatoes harvested, he once more resumed his home- 
stead hauntings. (During a part of July he had been 
away, lecturing in a neighboring town.) He had a 
feeling that this was the last attempt he could ever 
make; that, if the friendship failed him now, he must 
go away and leave it. 

Barbara was fully aware of the pausing mood of 
the year. She had always loved August; and had, 
heretofore, responded to it with a whole-hearted pause 
on her own part, with a glad giving over of the stress 
of life. But this year she feared it; and when it 
came she did her best to avoid it. Behind the crowd 
of her daily duties there loomed always those other 
interests, those dreams and wanderings, those dear 
235 


THE HOMESTEAD 


236 

freedoms, which she had renounced. It was only by 
keeping herself in the thick of preoccupation that she 
could ever lose sight of them. When the exactions 
of life began of their own accord to give way about 
her she felt like an unwilling traveler, coming out of 
a safe, sheltering wood into a dangerous swamp. 

It was then that Reuben had most cause to deplore 
his sister’s obstinacy. She set herself to the prosecu- 
tion of tasks which were not only unnecessary, but 
which she really could not afford. 

^'Barbara Marshall, I tell you, you’ve got improve- 
ment on the brain. You’ve done mighty well by the 
farm this summer; everybody knows that. But it’s 
as bad to go too far as not to do enough. You don’t 
need a new sap house ; the old one will last a year or 
two yet. And what’s the sense of drainin’ that 
meadow? Leastways, until you can afford it better 
than you can this year.” 

This sort of remonstrance grew familiar enough to 
Barbara. Reuben saw to that. But her perversity 
chose to use it as a spur instead of a check. The more 
insistently he talked the faster she laid her plans. 
Since he criticized her extravagance she dismissed one 
of her helpers, and did the lighter field work herself. 
She was glad of the excuse. 

Invented activity, however, can never be so effec- 
tive as genuine necessity. There is always a flaw in 
it, and it fails to convince and absorb. Barbara’s 
hands were fully employed with her new sap house; 
but her mind was insistently, uneasily aware that the 
constraint was artificial, and therefore it refused full 


THE HOMESTEAD 


237 


obedience. Again and again she caught it back from 
the brink of her hidden sea, from the gates of Rome, 
from the Acropolis of Athens, from the Egyptian 
desert. It tormented her. Daniel, watching her trou- 
bled face, read her condition more clearly than she 
did herself, and bided his time. He did not forget 
how suddenly she had relented to him three months 
before. 

One evening Fate favored him by bringing his wan- 
dering feet unexpectedly across her path, as she re- 
turned from a twilight inspection of a distant field. 
He had not intended to seek her that evening. She 
had been very perverse of late, and he was rather dis- 
couraged ; he wanted the healing touch of the always 
untroubled hills. He was even a little sorry when he 
found himself face to face with her. If he had seen 
her coming, he would have avoided her. This in- 
stinctive regret on his part betrayed itself in his man- 
ner, and worked for him. No woman can remain un- 
concerned by the indifference of a man whom she 
likes. The shock of sudden encounter was good for 
them both. It called for a readjustment and a change 
of attitude. 

‘‘Oh!” said Barbara. ‘‘Oh! it’s you.” 

She had been walking slowly, with her eyes on the 
evening star, trembling in the clear gold of the sunset 
above the dusky hill; and, in spite of herself, she had 
not been thinking about her buckwheat field. The 
mood of the hour was too much for her. The whole 
day had been full of dreams. Silent, misty, the hills 
had brooded about the hushed valley; and great slow 


THE HOMESTEAD 


238 

clouds had sailed overhead, turning the sky into a 
tranquil, illimitable sea. It had been no kind of day 
for -work. The repose of the earth had claimed the 
sympathetic repose of humanity. Barbara had had a 
desperate time, resisting the spirit of the hills and 
sky; but she had done it, she had kept herself busy 
from dawn to dusk. The present result was that, be- 
ing tired, she stood more completely than usual at 
the mercy of influences; and the departing day, seeing 
its chance for revenge, turned and possessed her whol- 
ly. When Daniel met her, she was in the act of lean- 
ing her arms on the rail of a fence and giving herself 
over to meditation. 

“Yes. Good-evening,” he replied briefly, rather 
guardedly. He was in two minds whether to stop or 
whether to continue his solitary ramble. 

This hesitation worked well for him, too. It was 
the first time his manner had ever conveyed the slight-- 
est hint of avoidance. Barbara brought her full at- 
tention to bear upon him. 

“It^s a beautiful evening,” she murmured doubt- 
fully. 

She did not want to detain him, if he wanted to be 
gone; and yet ! 

Unknown to herself, her commonplace words had 
a songlike quality, owing to the tone in which they 
were spoken. Rosalindas, “Come, woo me, woo me ; 
for now am I in a melting mood,” was veiled yet ut- 
tered in them. Perhaps Daniel was also unconscious 
of the invitation; but he responded at once. A light 
sprang into his eyes, and he also stepped to the fence 


THE HOMESTEAD 


239 

and leaned upon it. For a long, vibrating minute, the 
two stood in silence, side by side. Then, 

“See the fire flies,’' Daniel said. “They make me 
think of altar lights scattered about a great dusky 

cathedral. Once when I was in Siena ” 

And they were off. 

It was characteristic of their relation that, for all 
the new personal bond which they both felt, they talked 
not at all of themselves that evening, but of churches, 
towers, pictures, the beauty and mystery of the world, 
the meaning of life. The twilight deepened around 
them; they could no longer read each other’s eyes, 
their faces were glimmering mists. But that did not 
matter. They were not there on the hillside; but, 
hand in hand, their spirits ranged far seas and coun- 
tries. Whole-souled in her reactions as well as in her 
deliberate purposes, Barbara forgot the farm, the 
homestead, Reuben, herself ; and knew only the free- 
dom and joy of her escape. 

If the moon had not risen, the conversation might 
have ended as it began — intimate, vibrating, but star- 
like in its impersonality. The stars themselves let the 
two friends alone, stealing out unobtrusively, without 
interrupting them. The gradual footsteps of the dusk 
withdrew, unnoticed. The whole summer night wove 
a spell of remoteness about them. But, as they stood 
deep in talk, their absent eyes paying no heed to their 
environment, the shining rim of the moon pushed up 
above the dark mountain before them, and they were 
brought to a sudden pause. 

It is always an advent which arrests and changes 


240 


THE HOMESTEAD 


the night — ^this of the moon. The pulsing song of 
the crickets and grasshoppers seems to come to an 
imperceptible pause, then to begin again on another 
key. The hills stir and sigh and select a new dream. 
No meadow or brook remains unaware of the gra- 
cious arrival. So with Daniel and Barbara. He 
broke off in the midst of his description. She said, 
'"Oh!’^ softly. And they both turned and looked at 
each other. 

They could read each other’s eyes clearly now. The 
full golden radiance flooded them. What did they 
find there? Bewilderment, doubtless; the dizziness of 
a headlong return through leagues of space. A min- 
ute before they had been in Italy; now they stood on 
a New England hillside. But they must have found 
more than amazement to hold them gazing so long. 

‘"Barbara!” Daniel breathed. 

“Daniel!” 

She let him gather her hands into his and hold them 
closely. 

“You’ll come with me now?” 

She did not reply to this; but when his arms went 
about her, she yielded to him and laid her head pas- 
sively on his shoulder. 

William came on this scene so abruptly that he 
barely saved himself from interrupting it. He had 
wanted to speak to Barbara ; and, learning from Pris- 
cilla where she had gone, he had followed her. But, 
having found her, he seemed suddenly to decide that 
his errand could wait. Noiseless as any wild night 
creature he gathered himself together and withdrew. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


241 


His face was pale in the moonlight, but his lips were 
steady. Over the fields and down the hill he went 
home more rapidly than he had come ; and only when 
he stood on his doorstep did he let himself pause and 
turn to look back over the valley. Then, ^'My God !” 
he said half aloud; and, for perhaps the second or 
third time in his life, there were tears in his eyes. 


XXIII 


P )OR William! He was disgusted with himself 
that he so dreaded to meet the radiance of Bar- 
bara’s face the next morning. A fine lover, he I Was 
not the happiness of his beloved his most precious 
concern in the world, the one thing for which he would 
sacrifice all other interests? Yes, he could truly say 
that it was. He had no slightest intention or fear of 
failing her in the present crisis; but he simply could 
not bring himself to want to meet her eyes. He had 
often wondered how those dear lakes would look, 
transfigured by the light of love; and now he would 
have gone to the ends of the earth to avoid them, if 
he possibly could. 

But he could not. Last night’s development was 
precisely in a line with the venture which he had urged 
upon Barbara; and he must help her to put the thing 
through smoothly. He was at her door before she 
had quite finished breakfast. 

When he heard her coming to let him in he dropped 
his eyes to steel them; then he looked at her quickly 
and bravely, and — lost his mental balance. A glance 
prepared to deal with radiance does not know what 
to do when it finds itself encountering trouble. Bar- 
bara’s face had never presented a more cheerless front. 
^‘My dear child!” 

242 


THE HOMESTEAD 


243 

He was so disconcerted that he could not help the 
startled exclamation. But he recovered himself at 
once. He did not intend to betray his knowledge of 
last evening’s event. 

guess you didn’t sleep well,” he went on, in a 
more casual tone. “Are you going out to work?” 

He glanced at her short skirt and heavy boots. 

“Yes, right away,” she replied in a mechanical 
voice. 

“May I come with you?” 

His eyes expressed more of his solicitude than he 
thought it wise to allow to his voice ; and they proved 
their superior wisdom by the effect which they had on 
Barbara. Her own eyes softened and faltered. 

“Why, yes, of course, if you want to,” she an- 
swered. 

He had to wait for at least fifteen minutes, while 
she lingered in her mother’s garden. There was not 
much to be done there; but she invented duties, pick- 
ing off dead leaves and straightening wind-blown 
stems. Her face had in it a brooding lightning of 
tenderness. As she at last moved away, she turned 
several times and looked back at the blossoming plants. 
Meantime, she said not a word to William, nor he to 
her. 

He was at a loss. He could not gauge her unex- 
pected mood, and he was afraid of hurting her by 
some ill-considered turn. He walked silently beside 
her, wondering what he should say or do. But he 
need not have troubled himself. Unconsciously to 
them both, the influence of his presence quieted her; 


THE HOMESTEAD 


244 

and, before very long, she rewarded him by coming 
to the very point which he had had in mind when he 
had sought her out this morning. 

‘'Daniel Pritchard wants me to marry him,” she 
said impassively, with her eyes on a distant hill. 

“Well?” 

In spite of himself and to his increased disgust, 
William winced. But he did not show it. The one 
careful word which he entrusted to his voice was 
steady enough. 

“Oh! I don^t know, William.” 

She turned her eyes swiftly upon him, and he saw 
how deeply troubled she was. There was in her 
glance an appeal which roused the veriest man in him, 
so that he no longer needed to steel himself. He gen- 
uinely wanted to do his utmost to help her. 

“Can’t we sit down and talk a while?” he sug- 
gested. 

But Barbara did not want to sit down. Perhaps 
she disliked the appearance of committing herself to 
a discussion which must needs be painful, and pre- 
ferred to hold herself ready to escape at any moment. 
She stopped and leaned against the bars of the corn- 
field, where they had now arrived; and said nothing 
for some minutes. In fact, she was silent so long 
that William, who wanted to get this thing over with, 
ventured to jog her gently. 

“You love him, don’t you, Barbara?” 

But, after all, that hint was not so very gentle — at 
least, not in its effect. Barbara started and shrank 
and colored to the roots of her hair. 


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245 


William colored a little, himself. Then, with plead- 
ing apology in his eyes — which, unfortunately, she did 
not see — and with strong tenderness in his voice — 
which she could not choose but hear — he repeated his 
question. 

‘T think you must love him, Barbara. You and he 
are exactly suited to each other. Love is the best 
thing that comes to any of us. We needn’t be afraid 
of it. Tell me, Barbara, you do love him, don’t you?” 

He could not pretend to fathom the gaze which she 
slowly turned on him, holding him for a breathless 
moment. There were mysteries in it which he had 
never glimpsed before. He felt that she did not un- 
derstand it herself, did not know what she was grop- 
ing to say ; and he waited tensely to hear her speak. 

‘Wes, I suppose so,” she said. 

He would have sworn that this was exactly the an- 
swer that he had expected of her; y®t, when he re- 
ceived it, he felt inexpressibly chilled and disappointed. 
That was strange. He was ashamed of himself, and 
made all haste to temper his voice to reply promptly 
and evenly, 

“Good ! Then of course you want me to see about 
selling the homestead.” 

Again Barbara shrank — this time with a gesture of 
repudiation. 

“Oh! no, William,” she cried. “No, no, indeed!” 

“But, dear child !” He leaned his arms on the bar 
of the gate, and soberly addressed himself to argu- 
ment. “You must. It’s a providential chance, a 
chance of chances. It’s your duty, too. You can’t 


THE HOMESTEAD 


246 

ask Daniel to tie himself up here when he has just 
begun the work he wants to do.’’ 

Barbara shook her head. 

don’t ask him,” she said in a muffled voice. 

‘‘But— but ” 

William was again at a loss. He did not want. to 
say crudely, “Aren’t you going to marry him ?” There- 
fore he fell silent, and once more his forbearance was 
rewarded. 

“I wrote him a note early this morning to say that 
I couldn’t think of it,” Barbara stated dispassionately. 

Then suddenly William’s words were let loose. 
Strangely, perversely enough, his heart’s very leap of 
relief set him fervently pleading the cause that had 
fettered that unruly organ. He turned squarely fac- 
ing the girl; he compelled her reluctant eyes to meet 
his; and, for many minutes, he gave free rein to argu- 
ment, persuasion, even rebuke, such as he had never 
before employed with her. He told her, in effect, that 
she was foolish and morbid to let herself be bound by 
tradition instead of living her own spontaneous life. 
He warned her that Heaven-sent chances, if scorned, 
seldom return; that the gods are just and punish us 
for wilful negligence. He assured her that her duty 
was to the living lover who wanted her, rather than 
to the dead father and mother who had no need of 
her. As for her duty to the homestead, what could 
be better for it than to hand it over to capable, en- 
thusiastic people who would give it the fullest devel- 
opment it had ever had ? He ended by becoming rather 
vexed with her for her continued silence and unre- 


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247 

sponsiveness — though, all the time, his anxious heart 
exulted to perceive it. 

‘‘You’re a silly girl. Fve half a mind to wash my 
hands of you,” he brought out impatiently. 

Barbara slowly turned pale, as William let loose 
upon her this unprecedented storm. She had not 
dreamed that he could think or talk so violently. Grad- 
ually, her eyes lost all expression save an appalled 
dismay. When he ended on his note of vexation, she 
said faintly: 

“No, no, William! Please? Fll do what you think 
best.” 

“You’ll sell the farm?” 

Like a swiftly subsiding wave, the animation went 
out of his voice. The minute he gained his abhorred 
purpose his heart turned on him. But his will held 
its ground. 

“Yes,” she faltered. 

“And you’ll marry Daniel ?” 

“Yes,” she lamented. 

“Very well, then. Now come back to the house. 
For of course he’s there, waiting for you, in a nice 
state of mind.” 

He started away down the hill, and she followed 
obediently. How many centuries of Christian civili- 
zation had gone to make it possible that all that force 
of masculine command should be put forth on the 
beloved woman to hand her over to another man ! 

Daniel was indeed waiting; and his state of mind 
might be inferred from the bewildered trouble of his 
eyes and forehead. He did not come forward to meet 


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248 

the pair — his cue was too uncertain for him to risk 
any action ; but he eyed them anxiously from the edge 
of the orchard, where he watched their descent of the 
hill. As on the similar occasion (so dissimilar in re- 
sult!) when he had foiled Dick Marshall, William 
allowed himself to make it perfectly evident that he 
was the most important person in the transaction. 

‘‘See, I have won her for you,” his manner said as 
plainly as words. 

He left them together in the orchard, and made off 
across the fields, walking as violently as he had re- 
cently talked. There was something crude and fierce 
in the mood which had resulted from his conflicting 
feelings and purposes. His usual patience was en- 
tirely submerged. Having such dire need of his will 
to-day, he had given rather too much rein to that im- 
perious faculty, and was now uncompromisingly gov- 
erned by it. It led him to turn aside into a field where 
he saw Reuben Marshall at work. Better take this 
bull also at once by the horns, better tackle this diffi- 
culty and get it over with. He did not stop to con- 
sult his discretion. He had no discretion; he had 
only a desperate purpose, with an arrow in its heart. 

“Reuben,” he said, when the younger man was 
within ear-shot, “I have just come from the home- 
stead, and I may as well tell you that Barbara is 
going to marry Daniel Pritchard, and is going to sell 
the farm to a man from New York.” 

He threw back his head and waited defiantly to see 
the result of his words. It is not improbable that he 
hoped that Reuben would fly at him. 


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249 


But when he had to repeat his statement he per- 
ceived that he had overshot his mark; and the result 
of that was to begin to bring him to his usual sad 
senses. Having impressed the truth upon Reuben’s 
horrified and incredulous brain, having seen the dis- 
mayed brother drop his hoe and start for the home- 
stead, William went on his sober way, subdued and 
depressed. 

ought not to have done that,” he chided himself. 
‘'He’ll frighten her, coming on her so suddenly. And 
— and — he’ll interrupt her.” 

He entered his uninviting home too despondently 
to notice how particularly dreary it was. 


XXIV 


M artha SLOAN had not been able to run so 
fast from one occupation to another that she 
could outstrip the unseen pursuer from whom she 
fled. Rather, she had run mto its arms, and was 
cruelly clutched. 

The change in her had been so gradual that Wil- 
liam, waking at last to the realization that she was 
insane, had felt his own brain reel. There seemed, 
for the most part, little difference between the woman 
of to-day and the woman of a year ago; yet the one 
had been sane, and the other was unquestionably mad. 
Where lay the all-significant boundary line between 
the two conditions? Or is there no such line? 

He reproached himself bitterly. Sheer loneliness 
had done this thing, had shut his mother in oh her- 
self, until, through satiety and suffocation, she had 
lost herself. He ought to have seen to it that the door 
was kept ajar. But, even as he thus took himself to 
task, he knew in his inmost heart that he was inno- 
cent. The door had been shut long ago, before he 
was old enough to understand the situation; and the 
prisoner herself had kept it barred. Again and 
again, he had knocked, only to be sent away, baf- 
fled and chilled. 

Whose was the fault, then? There must be some 
fault when a human life is thus hopelessly perverted? 
250 


THE HOMESTEAD 


251 

His father’s? He was a silent, preoccupied man, al- 
ways intent on his work. But his mother had liked 
that. Her husband was precisely the kind of man 
she admired. He would have puzzled and annoyed 
her by giving her more of his society. No, there was 
no one to blame — unless it was circumstance, environ- 
ment. Fettered natures, like Martha’s, should be cast 
into crowded city streets, where, in spite of them- 
selves, they must give and take. 

Just before the first complete surrender of her rea- 
son Martha had seemed to come to a realization of 
what was impending and of the cause of it; and she 
had made a pitiful, belated effort to save the day. 
Having locked herself in, she tried to draw the bolt, 
and found, to her unspeakable dismay, that it was 
rusted fast. 

William never forgot the evening when he found 
his mother waiting for him by the gate in the moon- 
light. How long she had been there he never knew; 
but she was shivering, and her eyes were tired. He 
thought that she started to put out her hand, and his 
own hand responded instinctively, though he was 
much surprised. But instantly she drew back and 
wrapped her arms in her shawl. 

‘'Been with Barb’ry Marshall, I s’pose!” she 
snapped irritably. 

By some strange, uncalculated sense he knew that 
this was not what she had meant to say, and he did 
not answer it. Instead, he tried to secure her arm 
and draw it through his, as they both turned toward 
the house. The attempt was successful, mechani- 


THE HOMESTEAD 


252 

cally; but the unaccustomed contact rendered them 
rigid, and they could neither of them think of any- 
thing to say as, angular and embarrassed, they 
walked up the path. 

Indoors the situation was still more difficult, for 
they could see each other^s faces and read their mu- 
tual constraint. To be made to feel herself foolish 
was the last thing that was likely to help Martha. 

‘‘Don't stand gaping at me like that!” she said, 
twitching her shawl from her shoulders, and going 
to the stove, where a kettle had tactlessly taken oc- 
casion to boil over. 

The sight of the kettle touched William with a 
poignant realization of his mother’s need. She would 
never have left it boiling and gone off and forgotten 
it if she had not been preoccupied by some unusual 
necessity. She had really wanted him. 

“Mother!” he said, with a genuine throb of filial 
solicitude in his voice. He took a step forward and 
held out his hand. “Mother! I wish 

But he got no chance to express his desire before 
the answer came, smarting on his cheek. Martha 
turned and struck him. With wild entreaty in her 
despairing eyes she spat at him. After that she sat 
down in a corner, and laughed and cried herself into 
a state of exhaustion. 

The next day she was quiet again. William had 
spent a sleepless night, listening at her door and won- 
dering what he ought to do. Like most country peo- 
ple, he had a horror of all public places of ministra- 
tion — hospitals, asylums, and the like — and he knew 


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253 

that his mother would never knowingly consign her- 
self to one of them. Unless she was wholly beside 
herself, she would be wretched there. Before the new 
day broke he had, therefore, all but decided to keep 
her at home, no matter how much worse she became; 
and, when he found her apparently rational once 
more, he went about his work with an anxious fore- 
boding in his heart, but with a resolution to keep his 
own counsel and let things take their course. 

He did not flatter himself that the sinister ten- 
dency would relent, that he would ever again feel se- 
cure in his home life. But he thought — nay, he 
knew — ^himself strong enough to bear the burden; 
and he wanted to shield his mother from the com- 
ments of her neighbors. He did not forget how care- 
fully she had always kept the secret that his father 
had once had a small tumor removed from his side. 

Of course he was not wholly successful in his 
policy of reserve. His mother’s frenzies, once pre- 
cipitated, grew more and more frequent; and rumors 
of them crept about the countryside. But since he 
said nothing to any one, no one said anything to him ; 
and it was only from occasional glances that he ever 
suspected the universal solicitude. Not even to Bar- 
bara — especially not to Barbara — did he unburden his 
heart of its anxiety. 

Martha’s distractions were generally not of the 
violent kind. She talked and laughed and cried a 
good deal, making up for the long lack of utterance 
in her life, playing both parts of the vital duet which 
experience had denied her. Sometimes she burned 


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254 

the food; sometimes she rearranged the furniture 
fantastically; oftener she left it chaotically unar- 
ranged. But real mischief never seemed to occur to 
her. William was doubly thankful for that. No one 
could justly criticize him for keeping her at home. 

When, however, on his return from delivering 
Barbara to Daniel he had stood inside his kitchen 
door long enough for the familiar environment to 
penetrate his absorption and claim the action of his 
senses, he suddenly became aware that something was 
wrong. Very wrong. It was not the kitchen itself 
that warned him. That looked as usual, only, per- 
haps, a little more dreary. Martha’s one household 
grace had been order ; and, when that failed her, her 
home abandoned itself to a desolation of cheerless- 
ness. The chairs stood undusted, unwashed dishes 
piled the sink, towels strewed the floor. But Wil- 
liam’s eyes ignored these disconsolations, and sped 
to the door of the stairway, whence a fine blue smoke 
stole down from the upper floor. With a spring and 
a bound he was across the room and up the stairs. 

His mother looked up almost affably from the 
middle of his bedroom floor, where she was busily 
fanning the flame of a fire she had just started with 
a huge pile of books. 

‘They’re Barb’ry’s books, ain’t they?” she inquired. 
“Leastways, you read ’em to her. Well, you see. I’m 
burnin’ ’em up. That’ll be good riddance, won’t it?” 

She made no resistance when he swept her aside 
and dashed the contents of his bath-tub on the flames. 
His abruptness seemed to bring her somewhat to her 


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255 

senses, to make her realize what she had done; and 
she was both ashamed and defiant. She muttered 
something about “feeling cold,’’ about wanting to “get 
rid of useless rubbish,” about guessing she knew 
what to do in her own house. But during the rest 
of the morning she brooded in a forbidding mood. 

William felt more nearly distracted than at any 
time during the last few trying weeks. The strain of 
his session with Barbara had tired him inevitably; 
yet he could not let up on the tension there, for the 
demand was not over. As he went about the house- 
hold tasks which his mother was to-day unable to 
perform — clearing up the grim disorder of his room, 
putting the kitchen to rights, preparing something for 
dinner — his thoughts were occupied even more with 
his friend than with his own family anxieties. He 
felt that he had wronged her by turning Reuben so 
suddenly loose on her, and then leaving her alone to 
deal with the resulting situation. Having committed 
the first mistake, he should have followed it up by 
going to defend her from her brother. Yet what if 
he had done so! He shivered, as he looked at his 
poor, distraught mother and thought of the fiery 
doom that was all but upon her when he came to the 
rescue. Heaven must have sent the weakness of heart 
that had made it impossible for him to return imme- 
diately to the homestead. 

He was strong again now, however. At least, he 
thought so. Certainly he was possessed by a mount- 
ing desire to go and learn just what had happened, 
to make an end of all final mists of uncertainty lin- 


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256 

gering in his heart. They tormented him, those mists ; 
for where they were, hope would forever persist in 
lifting up her head. Late afternoon found him al- 
most as restless as his unhappy mother. He dared 
not leave home; yet he could hardly hold himself 
away from Barbara. 

His mother dimly perceived his uneasiness, and 
took a cunning, if half-unconscious, delight in aug- 
menting it. Her sullen mood of the morning had 
passed into one of extreme loquaciousness, and she 
prattled incessantly and very unamiably. Her main 
theme was Barbara: lazy, selfish, good-for-nothin* 
girl that she was, a disgrace to her family, a warnin’ 
to all other families! Did William know how she 
was carryin’ on with a play-actor fellow? Some 
day she’d run away with him; and then there’d be 
a scandal, but also a mighty good riddance. 

William made himself bear all this talk, poignantly 
distasteful and distressing though it was to him. His 
poor mother was not responsible. He must not even 
let himself feel angry with her. But as the afternoon 
wore on and passed into the evening, his face grew 
more and more haggard with the suppressed and 
complicated anguish of his spirit. 

When the lamps were lighted and he had persuaded 
his mother to drink a little warm milk, he hoped that 
the usual reaction of great fatigue would set in with 
her and that she would fall asleep. But until nearly 
midnight she was incessantly active. She insisted on 
taking everything out of the sitting-room and sweep- 
ing the carpet and even washing the windows. She 


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257 


got down from a shelf some pieces of ancestral silver 
and polished them. William could only look on, lend- 
ing her an occasional helping hand, and pray that the 
frenzy might soon spend itself. 

Just as the clock was striking twelve he was re- 
lieved to see her sit down in a chair by the table and, 
with a great rending sigh of weariness, lean her head 
on her hand. As he came over to her she looked up 
into his face with a pitiful appeal. 

“Tired out, aren’t you?” he said gently. “Well, 
it’s time to go to bed.” 

He put his hand on her shoulder ; then, as she made 
no protest, he gathered her into his arms and carried 
her up to her room. For the first time that he re- 
membered, she clung to him, and he thought he heard 
her give a little sob. Whereupon he patted her back 
awkwardly with his big, clumsy hand. But she was 
already sound asleep when he laid her on her bed. 

Covering her carefully and pulling down the shades 
of the windows, he stood looking at her a minute, his 
heart heavy with compassion. How shrunken, how 
abject, how hopeless she seemed! And he could do 
nothing for her. The pity of her life tragedy was 
beyond compare. But presently his own restless pre- 
occupation began to return upon him, and he wan- 
dered downstairs and stood in the open kitchen door, 
looking out into the night. 

It was now too late to go to Barbara, but it seemed 
to him that he must go somewhere. He felt a great 
need of air and space, of the solace of the hills. 
Dared he leave his mother? He had never known 


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258 

her to sleep less than five or six hours after a frenzy, 
and this attack had lasted so long that he thought she 
would probably feel the reaction for several days. 
Yes, surely, she was safe. 

With his head bent and his hands clasped behind 
him, he went out under the stars. The silent, 
shadowy hills had need of eternities of solace if they 
were to bring him peace. 


XXV 


wo or three hours later he found himself climb- 



ing the hill on which he had so often sat with 


Barbara. He did not know quite how he had come 
here nor where he had been in the interim since leav- 
ing his house. He did not want to know. It was 
better to leave in obscurity as much of that agonized 
wandering as possible. 

He had a vague impression that he had circled the 
homestead several times, and that there had been a 
light in Barbara’s window. Yes, he was sure of that. 
The steady ray had signified all sorts of things in the 
way of a wakeful acceptance of destiny, a glad giving 
over of old doubts and fears; and it had hurt him in- 
tolerably, while yet he had hailed it with triumphant 
acquiescence. It was all right, it was the one thing 
for which he had lived and worked and prayed: 
Barbara was free, she was going away, she was about 
to realize all her splendid capacities for spiritual life 
and growth, she was saved from her destruction. Yet 
her new birth and salvation meant nothing less to 
him than the end of all earthly interests. How was 
he going to stand it? William was in the throes of 
that bitterest of discoveries : that a self-emptying de- 
votion does not necessarily bring a reward of peace, 
but often tries to the uttermost the heart that makes 


259 


26 o 


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it. He could nerve himself to the actual putting away 
of his love; the subsequent endurance was another 
thing. 

As he set his face to the hill, the first faint in- 
dications of dawn were in the sky. The stars grew 
a little paler, and the east quickened obscurely. The 
change did not cheer him. He preferred darkness 
and silence, and made haste to hide himself in the 
shadows of the forest. But dawn is a penetrating 
thing, a matter of the whole atmosphere rather than 
of the mere eastern sky; and, before long, the dim 
light was stealing forth from among the silent trees. 
Then a bird called in the distance, a squirrel woke 
and stirred, the sound of the brook was borne on a 
morning breeze; and William knew that, whether he 
had courage for it or not, another day was upon him. 

He climbed slowly, because he had no particular 
object in climbing at all, and because he was very 
tired; and when he came out on the summit the 
whole world was glimmering in the gray dawn light. 
The valley below him was filled with white mist. It 
was infinitely peaceful. The slopes of the surround- 
ing mountains stood out against one another and 
against the pale blue sky. The scene and the hour 
would ordinarily have hushed William with a blessed 
sense of the abiding rightness of things; but this 
morning he almost hated them. He threw himself 
on the ground and hid his face in his arms. 

He had lain there long enough to feel the strength 
of the mountain invade him in spite of himself and 
to grow, therefore, insensibly, a little quieter when 


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261 


he heard some one coming up the mountain path. At 
once he lifted his head, and a strangely commingled 
look of leaping welcome and apprehensive fear sprang 
into his worn face. Woodsman and lover, he did not 
have to think twice to know that the approaching 
‘footstep was human and that it was Barbara’s. Should 
he spring to meet her? Should he run away? He 
decided the matter by staying just where he was, ly- 
ing almost hidden at the foot of a great rock. 

She did not see him when she emerged from the 
forest and stood looking out over the dawn-summoned 
world. She did not seem to see anything — even the 
view for whose sake she must have come. Her face 
had a baffled and blinded look, an entirely hopeless 
questing. She seemed to have come to the end of 
something, and to be appalled by the realization that, 
though it was indubitably the end, still she had to 
go on. With all his experience of her William had 
never known her to look so unhappy. He gazed at 
her, spellbound with perplexity and pity, for the first 
time sharing the despair which lay in her eyes. 

But this mood did not last long with him. As soon 
as he understood that her tormented destiny was not 
yet settled, after all, that there was still something 
which he could do for her, the weary anguish of the 
last few hours left him, and his brain cleared, and 
his heart steadied itself. He did not speak to her, 
for he wanted to watch her a minute and give free 
scope to a sudden darting suspicion that perhaps, with 
all his lifelong study of her, he did not fully under- 
stand her, that there was something there, something 


262 


THE HOMESTEAD 


— he knit his brows. It took all his native humility 
to admit, even to himself, that there was anything in 
Barbara which he had not fathomed. His whole soul 
stood up within him, scorning his fatigue, bending all 
its energies on the track of a new surmise. 

But he had time to make no progress; for, as he 
gazed at her, she turned and looked at him. 

‘‘Why, William!’’ 

Her tone gave the impression of assuming that she 
was surprised, then of discovering that, strangely 
enough, she was not, and of accepting the essential 
inevitableness of the situation. She certainly had 
not known he was there; yet, just as certainly, she 
had come to find him. 

“William r 

She held out her hand and invited him to come and 
sit beside her. 

The sea of mist at their feet was moving and break- 
ing a little now. Patches of meadow-land were be- 
ginning to show through it here and there, and clumps 
of trees emerged into solid seeming. From the chim- 
neys of the scattered houses rose a faint blue smoke. 
The two hilltop watchers looked on in silence, and 
both their faces fell into quieter lines. The day was 
coming. Well, perhaps, after all, they could manage 
to be ready for it. 

“When are you going, Barbara?” 

William spoke first, feeling his way, guardedly 
watching the face of his companion. His tone was 
as matter-of-course as he could make it. She did not 


THE HOMESTEAD 263 

turn on him, as he had perhaps expected; but she 
waited a minute before replying. 

‘'William, I don’t know.” 

"But you are going?” 

"Not with Daniel.” 

Then she did turn and look at him; and again the 
darting suspicion thrilled him that there was some- 
thing in her which he did not understand. He held 
her eyes as long as he could, but she soon looked 
away again. 

"You don’t love him?” he ventured, speaking in a 
voice whose thickness disconcerted him. 

"No.” She shook her head. "I never have loved 
him, and he has never really loved me. That isn’t 
love.” 

There was a certain vibration in her voice as she 
spoke the last words, which was quite too much for 
William. He got up roughly and went and sat on a 
tree-trunk facing her. His unhappy eyes looked al- 
most hard as he challenged her. Yet there was a 
leaping relief in them, too. 

"Daniel isn’t the point, Barbara,” he said. "If you 
had loved him, it would have made things easier for 
you. But the point is the homestead: you simply 
must go away from it. Now you’ve got to go all 
alone. When will you start? 

"Yes,” he went right on, giving her hardly time for 
the reply which was not forthcoming, "you must go, 
Barbara, and you must go of your own accord. I 
can’t tell you how important this crisis seems to me. 
I will confess to you now that twice I have been on 


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264 

the point of burning the homestead. It is your evil 
genius, your power of darkness. And it wasn’t the 
legal offense that stopped me. I would gladly have 
paid my last cent and gone to prison for the sake of 
setting you free. But I knew that one person can’t 
force freedom on another, that each must win it for 
himself. If I had burned the homestead your spirit 
might still have been in bondage to the idea of it. So 
I’ve waited and waited, and suffered, and pleaded, 
and feared and hoped — oh, Barbara!” — his voice 
broke suddenly, hammered by the fierce beating of 
his heart, and he turned away, clenching his hands 
and looking blindly down into the valley — ‘^may you 
never know what it means to stand helpless before 
the destiny that is all the world to you.” 

He had not known he was going to say this; he 
certainly had not intended to. The unexpected con- 
versation had run a still more unexpected course, 
taking a swift plunge to an unforeseen conclusion. 
He was appalled at the possible consequences, and, 
standing with his back to Barbara, tried to recover 
himself, while the echoes of his last choking cry went 
beating about his iears. 

But he had not time even to clear the mists from 
his eyes before she spoke to him, and her voice was 
choking, too. 

‘William!” 

He paid noi attention to her, so she took a step 
nearer him. 

‘William 

His nails bit into his palms as he turned back to 


THE HOMESTEAD 265 

her, he had such great need of his self-control. But 
when he saw her eyes he was so carried out of him- 
self by amazement that all his members relaxed. For 
as much as a minute he stood staring limply and si- 
lently at her. 

Then he suddenly lifted his hands to his face with 
a desperate gesture, as if he were fending off an all 
but annihilating revelation, and took a step back- 
ward, away from her. 

‘‘No, Barbara! No!” he cried. ‘Tt can’t be so. 
No! no! Barbara.” 

His voice was strangely sharp and hard. He cov- 
ered his eyes. 

*‘No! no! no!” he said again. ‘‘No, Barbara!” 

“Wait!” then he added sternly. 

He took his stand at some little distance from her, 
with his back against a tree, and made himself look 
at her. At once a great light sprang into his eyes, 
but he fought it down. 

“Will you give me your promise to go away, Bar- 
bara?” he demanded imperatively. 

“Yes, William,” she answered slowly. 

“No matter what happens? Even if you have to 
go quite alone?” 

She hesitated and looked at him questioningly. 

“It’s more important than anything,” he told her 
gravely. “Than anything/^ 

The word throbbed on his tongue. 

She hesitated a moment longer, looking out over 
the hills in the direction of the homestead; then she 
opened her hands in a gesture of acquiescence. 


266 THE HOMESTEAD 

“Yes, no matter what happens, I will go. I prom- 
ise you.” 

“Then — oh, Barbara, darling!” — ^he could hardly 
speak, the tears rained down his cheeks — “will you 
let me go with you?” 

He opened his arms. 

When the sun rose they were sitting close together 
on the edge of the hill, and neither of them had yet 
said a word. Their faces were dazed and bewildered, 
but flooded with reassurance. For a long time it had 
seemed as if they would never again have need of 
any speech ; but gradually their very amazement drove 
them to taking counsel with each other. 

“Barbara,” William began, groping his way in his 
singing darkness, “how — what — are you sure?” 

“Don’t you know that I am?” she responded. 

“Yes, but — when did you find out?” 

“Just when I told you about it. Haven’t we been 
blind ?” 

“Speak for yourself. I haven’t been. I have loved 
you all my life.” 

“So have I,” she echoed confidently. “Why, of 
course — why, of course, I have loved you, William. 
I’ve hardly done anything else. You ought to have 
known it — ^you who knew everything else about me. 
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I repeat, we 
have both of us been incredibly blind.” 

“Well” — ^he folded her closer — “we both have our 
eyes open now. Only — I can’t believe it.” 


THE HOMESTEAD 267 

He shook his head and relapsed once more into his 
amazement. 

“Shall we sell the homestead 

That was just the right question on her part to give 
him the pull he needed back to the ordinary world. 
He sat up a little straighter, and turned and smiled 
at her. 

“That’s my brave girl! Of course we’ll sell it.” 
He passed his hand over his forehead and drew a 
long breath. “Perhaps I’ll sell my farm, too. I’ve 
neter said anything about it, nor even thought much 
of it, for it didn’t seem to the point; but the truth is 
that I have always wanted to see Italy. The trouble 
is” — ^his face clouded and he paused — “how best to 
provide for my mother. You know — you know, don’t 
you, Barbara, that she is insane ?” 

The girl softly put her lips to his cheek. 

“Can’t we sell the homestead, and keep your farm, 
and stay home and take care of her?” she suggested 
tenderly. 

“No!” He shook his head vigorously. “Not even 
if you have to go away without me for a while. You 
— must — go — away.” 

“Perhaps you don’t know,” he went on after a 
moment, “that an uncle of mine, my mother’s brother, 
died in Colorado a few months ago, and left us both 
some money. If my mother would be content in 
some sort of a sanitarium that would be the best place 
for her. Heaven knows she’s not contented at home. 
And she’s growing dangerous. Yesterday she lighted 


268 


THE HOMESTEAD 


a fire in the middle of my bedroom. We might try 
sending her away and see how the plan works.’* 

His face darkened still more ruefully. Then he 
swept it clear with a sudden effort of his will. 

‘T want you to understand, Barbara,’* he said reso- 
lutely, ‘'that, just as I have never let anything inter- 
fere with what I conceived to be your welfare, so I 
am never going to let anything interfere with it. I will 
take care of my mother, of course. But you must go 
away. Everything always comes back to that.** 

“Oh, William!** Barbara lifted her face with one 
of the quick changes of mood that were so character- 
istic of her. Her eyes shone, her lips parted, and 
presently she rose to her feet. “For the first time I 
seem to understand what that means: to go away. 
Always before it meant leaving you, perhaps leaving 
you forever. But now** — ^her mood mounted, she 
spread out her arms, facing the wide world below her 
as if she would fly forth over it — “now it means free- 
dom and growth and delight, it means beauty and 
knowledge, it means experience; above all, it means 
love. Oh, William! I am too happy for words. I 
am going away.** 

It would seem as if William might have already 
felt himself sufficiently rewarded by this morning*s 
consummation; but, as he watched Barbara*s glow- 
ing face, he recognized the supreme recompense of 
his life. She was free. He need have no further 
fears for her. Her destiny had fully and finally spread 
its wings, and soared into the open sky where it be- 
longed. 


XXVI 


T hey made no haste down the hill. The hour 
was still early, and they had the whole day be- 
fore them. Moreover, although in a sense they were 
eager to put their new plans into action, in another 
sense they shrank from the stress and difficulty that 
inevitably awaited them. They wanted to linger a 
little longer in the sweet security of their unchal- 
lenged purpose. Yet again their new necessity of 
walking hand in hand involved them in many delays 
along the narrow path. 

“Do you remember how I used to dread coming 
out of the woods and getting my first sight of the 
homestead ?” Barbara mused, as they neared the edge 
of the forest, “and how you had fairly to drag me 
forward sometimes? I don't feel that way to-day.* 
Fm not afraid of it. I wonder why." 

She stopped and looked up into her lover's face 
with puzzled eyes. 

“Is it just because I have made up my mind? Just 
because I love you? No, it seems to go deeper even 
than that. I am not the same person I was. Some- 
thing has changed me." 

“Something has released you, you mean," William 
answered promptly, yet with an immediately suc- 
ceeding effect of absent-mindedness — as if his atten- 
269 


270 


THE HOMESTEAD 


tion had waited only long enough to deliver a re- 
quired response before darting off on a new track. 
Barbara had been too absorbed in her thoughts to 
notice it, but for several rods of their downward 
progress William had been uneasy. He had imper- 
ceptibly quickened his pace, and had held his head 
high, scenting the breeze and listening acutely. It 
had seemed to him that something was wrong off 
there in the distance — something, he did not know 
what. There was a rumor in the air, and there was 
a pungency. When Barbara stopped and looked into 
his face she, too, was troubled ; and, when he did not 
stop in his turn, but hurried on, she hurried after 
him. 

*'What is the matter, William ? I Oh, come ! 

Let us run.” 

She turned very pale, and the high serenity of her 
eyes was shot through with an apprehension which 
was none the less alarming for its formlessness. She 
also had detected the rumor and the pungency. 

As on so many former occasions, she outstripped 
her lover in their descent of the forest path ; but she 
did not, as usual, wait for him within the edge of 
the woods. He tried to hold her back. 

“Barbara! Wait, dear. Let me go first.” 

But, not heeding, perhaps not even hearing, his 
call, she dashed out into the open field, and he fol- 
lowed her. 

Below them the morning valley lay in all the fresh 
tranquillity of sunshine and dew. Long shadows 
stretched their cool fingers caressingly over it, and 


THE HOMESTEAD 


271 

bird songs vibrated through tlie air. It was a scene 
of quiet assurance and security. But, on the edge of 
it, on the slope of the mountain, just below William 
and Barbara, rose a dense cloud of smoke. It was 
like a storm cloud, driven by a fierce wind. Even 
at a distance the rush and volume of it were felt to 
be terrific. Its edges snapped and flew, great ban- 
ners and streamers of it were borne about the neigh- 
boring fields. In its heart, and sometimes shooting 
all through it, were tongues and columns of flame. 
It was a mighty, defiant thing, an irresistible force. 

Barbara gave only one cry. It echoed in William’s 
heart all his life long, but she was unconscious of it. 
Then she fled down the hill, stopping not for the 
winding pathway, but plunging straight over steep 
rocky slopes, over brooks, over bogs and fences. It 
mattered not to her that her limbs were soon bruised, 
her clothes torn, her hands bleeding. She was as 
unconscious of them as of her own sobbing breath. 
When she came out by the burning homestead she 
was a woeful figure. The crowding neighbors in- 
stinctively stood a little aside to give her grief pri- 
vacy. 

The roof had not yet fallen, but it was plain that 
that consummation was at hand. Through all the 
windows and along the eaves the flames were climb- 
ing, leaping. The walls were riddled, one or two of 
the beams tottered ominously. In every direction flew 
•the sparks, like swarms of golden bees. The rush 
and tumult of the flames made a great shouting 
chorus. 


272 


THE HOMESTEAD 


There was nothing to be done. In a corner of the 
ruined garden William noticed a small heap of fur- 
niture, and knew that some neighbor had arrived in 
time to make an attempt at rescue; but the conflagra- 
tion had evidently been discovered too late for any 
effective salvation. It was now not safe to stand 
within the fence. 

Barbara said nothing. She stood just where her 
headlong arrival had landed her, and gazed at her 
burning home with all her Marshall soul in her eyes. 
William was almost frightened to see how like her 
father she looked. There was no mistaking, no 
doubting the desolation of her sorrow. She looked 
stricken, too, as if she were guiltily responsible. 
House and woman confronted each other for the last 
time, terribly in earnest. 

‘Tt is glad to go, isnT it?’" William said, after a 
moment of thoughtful consideration of the situation. 
He spoke quietly, confidently, and slipped his hand 
under Barbara's arm. 

She quivered a little, and he knew that he had suc- 
ceeded in startling her from her fixed absorption. 
She even cast him a fleeting glance of inquiry. 

‘‘Why, of course!’’ he assured her. “It knows it 
is conquered; and, like the good sport that it is, it 
welcomes a thorough defeat. You and it have fought 
an equal fight. It has many times been so nearly the 
victor that it has nothing to be ashamed of. It has 
always done its best. Maybe it’s tired now. I should 
think it might be, standing so doggedly for one thing 
during so many years. It certainly seems to find no 


THE HOMESTEAD 


trouble at present in standing for wild change. Look 
out, there!’’ He pulled her back as an arm of flame 
shot out of one of the windows and swept across the 
yard. ''It wanted to embrace you, didn’t it? It loves 
you now; don’t you feel that it loves you? You have 
proved yourself worthy of it, and it salutes you. If 
you had yielded to it, it would have scorned you to 
death.” 

Barbara still said nothing, as these broken but quiet 
sentences sounded in her ear. She continued to hold 
herself rigidly and gaze into the flames. But, little 
by little, she breathed more freely, and a softer light 
came into her eyes. 

“Yes, and I love it, too,” she murmured at last; 
“love it as never before. Oh, old house!” 

She put out her hand as if to clasp some respon- 
sive fingers. 

But just then William, watching, pulled her back, 
across the road, into the neighboring field, giving, at 
the same time, a warning cry; and, with a shout of 
victory, the roof of the homestead fell in. The flames 
sprang up higher than ever, the sparks flew far and 
wide, the old walls collapsed ; and, half an hour later, 
the house was a glowing heap. 

William and Barbara did not wait to watch the 
lingering process of dissolution. The soul of the 
homestead went out when the roof and walls fell; 
and, after that, there was no glory nor meaning in 
the spectacle. Other things grew insistent: the hov- 
ering forms of neighbors, eager yet afraid to speak 
their sympathy; the haggard face of poor Reuben, 


274 


THE HOMESTEAD 


glaring miserably at them; the pitiful, charred elm 
trees, and the garden — oh, the garden! they must get 
away from that. With a mutual movement of dread 
and repugnance they turned in the direction of Wil- 
liam’s home. 

That something should be the matter here, too, was 
hardly a surprise to them, so incessant had been the 
revelations of this momentous day. The doctor’s 
buggy stood by the gate, and two or three women 
were evidently busying themselves about the house. 
One of them saw William coming, and ran to meet 
him. Though, indeed, he gave her scant chance. 
With a white face and with eyes of the deepest alarm, 
he anticipated the most of her approach. 

‘‘What’s the matter?” His voice rang out. 

“It’s your mother, William. She seems to have 
had some kind of a stroke. She must have got up to 
go to the fire. Leastways, Pete Maynar^, the first 
man on the spot, saw her hiding behind the wood- 
shed. She must have been there some time, for her 
hair is all full of cinders. She didn’t get burned; 
no, not a bit; and she wasn’t hurt anywhere. But I 
guess the shock was too much for her. She fell as 
soon as Pete spoke to her; and he and Joel Perkins 
had to carry her home. She’s resting quietly now, 
but ” 

The rest of this explanation was lost in the air 
behind William’s back, as, closely followed by Bar- 
bara, he strode across his dooryard and into his 
house. A group of women gave way before him, and 
he stood by his mother’s bed. 


THE HOMESTEAD 


275 

There was nothing distressing in the wan face, ly- 
ing inert on the pillow ; rather there was, for the first 
time, in it a suggestion of peace. Like the home- 
stead, its bitter fight was over ; it had been conquered, 
and in its defeat lay its supreme satisfaction. How 
it had struggled and suffered and fought, beating 
itself against the life which was always too much for 
it! Freedom and harmony had it at last; in spite of 
itself, it had ministered to them, and it was well con- 
tent. 

‘‘Oh, mother! mother!” 

William knelt down by the side of the bed and hid 
his head in his hands. Then, as he felt Barbara 
kneeling beside him, he freed one arm and put it 
around her, holding her close. 

“You have completed our destiny, mother,” he 
whispered into the unhearing ear before him, “and 
when you wake up in heaven, you will be very glad. 
I understand. I will keep the secret. Bless you, 
mother dear.” 

But his tears rained down on the counterpane, and 
he hid his face in his mother’s shoulder and sobbed 
like a little child. Barbara drew away, and did not 
try to comfort him. She felt that this moment be- 
longed wholly to the mother who might remember it 
by and by and cherish the thought of it through all 
eternity. 

Two hours later, without opening her eyes or mak- 
ing any sign, Martha ceased to breathe. 

That is really all there is to be said. Daniel left 
on the evening train. When William and Barbara 


THE HOMESTEAD 


276 

went to seek him in the afternoon, and Barbara said 
to him, ‘‘William and I love each other,” he gazed at 
them in wide-eyed silence a moment; then a flashing 
light touched his face into a vivid smile, and he held 
out both hands to them, crying, “Why, so you do!” 

“Haven't we all three been foolish ?” Barbara went 
on, laughing. “But we understand one another now, 
and we are going to have good times together — the 
best of times. Are you going back to Italy? Well, 
William and I will meet you there — some time.” 

The vision of far seas and palaces, of fountains 
and ilex groves leaped into her eyes as she spoke. She 
clasped William's arm a little tighter, and drew a long 
breath. 

But the summer dusk found her in her mother's 
garden, working among the broken plants. To her 
infinite comfort, she found that the havoc there was 
not nearly so serious as it had looked. Many flow- 
ers had escaped altogether, and were bravely lifting 
their heads among the ruins ; almost all of them gave 
promise of recovery. 

“See, there's an evening primrose. Oh, sweet!” 
Barbara murmured, as William came to find her. 
“And a whole bed of pansies. William, you know, 
they say that things grow lustily after a fire. Per- 
haps, next summer, the garden will be finer than ever.” 

“I don't doubt it,” he answered. 

Then, hand in hand, they turned to the place where 
the house had stood, and their faces fell into thought- 
ful lines. 

“Why shouldn't it have gone to be one of those 


THE HOMESTEAD 


277 


‘many mansions' we read about?" Barbara reflected. 
“My father and mother would ask nothing better 
than to spend eternity in it." 


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